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                             CHRIST LEGENDS

                                   BY

                             SELMA LAGERLOeF

                      Translated from the Swedish

                                   BY

                         VELMA SWANSTON HOWARD

                      DECORATIONS BY BERTHA STUART

                             [Illustration]

                                NEW YORK

                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

                                  1908

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            Copyright, 1908,

                                   BY

                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

                                -------

                        Published October, 1908

                      THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
                             RAHWAY, N. J.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                CONTENTS

                    THE HOLY NIGHT                  1
                    THE EMPEROR'S VISION           13
                    THE WISE MEN'S WELL            25
                    BETHLEHEM'S CHILDREN           41
                    THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT          73
                    IN NAZARETH                    85
                    IN THE TEMPLE                  95
                    SAINT VERONICA'S KERCHIEF     119
                    ROBIN REDBREAST               191
                    OUR LORD AND SAINT PETER      203
                    THE SACRED FLAME              221

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: The Holy Night]

                             THE HOLY NIGHT


When I was five years old I had such a great sorrow! I hardly know if I
have had a greater since.

It was then my grandmother died. Up to that time, she used to sit every
day on the corner sofa in her room, and tell stories.

I remember that grandmother told story after story from morning till
night, and that we children sat beside her, quite still, and listened.
It was a glorious life! No other children had such happy times as we
did.

It isn't much that I recollect about my grandmother. I remember that she
had very beautiful snow-white hair, and stooped when she walked, and
that she always sat and knitted a stocking.

And I even remember that when she had finished a story, she used to lay
her hand on my head and say: "All this is as true, as true as that I see
you and you see me."

I also remember that she could sing songs, but this she did not do every
day. One of the songs was about a knight and a sea-troll, and had this
refrain: "It blows cold, cold weather at sea."

Then I remember a little prayer she taught me, and a verse of a hymn.

Of all the stories she told me, I have but a dim and imperfect
recollection. Only one of them do I remember so well that I should be
able to repeat it. It is a little story about Jesus' birth.

Well, this is nearly all that I can recall about my grandmother, except
the thing which I remember best; and that is, the great loneliness when
she was gone.

I remember the morning when the corner sofa stood empty and when it was
impossible to understand how the days would ever come to an end. That I
remember. That I shall never forget!

And I recollect that we children were brought forward to kiss the hand
of the dead and that we were afraid to do it. But then some one said to
us that it would be the last time we could thank grandmother for all the
pleasure she had given us.

And I remember how the stories and songs were driven from the homestead,
shut up in a long black casket, and how they never came back again.

I remember that something was gone from our lives. It seemed as if the
door to a whole beautiful, enchanted world--where before we had been
free to go in and out--had been closed. And now there was no one who
knew how to open that door.

And I remember that, little by little, we children learned to play with
dolls and toys, and to live like other children. And then it seemed as
though we no longer missed our grandmother, or remembered her.

But even to-day--after forty years--as I sit here and gather together
the legends about Christ, which I heard out there in the Orient, there
awakes within me the little legend of Jesus' birth that my grandmother
used to tell, and I feel impelled to tell it once again, and to let it
also be included in my collection.

It was a Christmas Day and all the folks had driven to church except
grandmother and I. I believe we were all alone in the house. We had not
been permitted to go along, because one of us was too old and the other
was too young. And we were sad, both of us, because we had not been
taken to early mass to hear the singing and to see the Christmas
candles.

But as we sat there in our