Author’s Note: The following short story was inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s poem, “A Child of the Snows.” I originally wrote it as a Christmas gift for my family in 2015. I wanted to provide a fanciful explanation for what might have caused Chesterton to write such a beautiful and intriguing poem.
There was once a little boy named Keith who saw things differently from everyone else; that is to say, he saw the truth of them. The sun was a star, he was told, and he believed it. But he also believed that the stars were fairies or elves, and that the sun was king of them, a gigantic, jolly fellow bright with laughter, who leaped across his court in the sky every day for sport. And this idea of his had more truth in it than had the simple facts.
All things reminded Keith of Fairy-land; indeed, he felt he was in it. There was a strange and wonderful reason for everything, and if he did not know the reason, that made it all the more wonderful. He did not know why the river ran downhill instead of up, but he laughed for joy because it did. He never felt it had to be that way; in fact, every time he saw the river still flowing in the same direction, he was glad, because it might have decided to run the other way during the night. Icicles might have grown up or down or sideways; but they always chose to grow down, and Keith liked them best that way. Snow was white, but it could have been black; and Keith was immensely grateful that it was not black.
While some things had good but secret reasons for being the way they were, others had reasons Keith could easily guess. Winter was the topsy-turvy time of year, because it was the time when the world decided to stand on its head. Everything was cold instead of hot and quiet instead of noisy; there was more nighttime than daytime; the trees dropped their leaves to the ground and stuck their bare branches like bare roots into the dirty grey ground of the sky. Because it was topsy-turvy, it was a fragile time of year, too: ice could break, snow could thaw, the world might at any moment fall off its head; and when it did, it would get up and frolic on its feet again, and that would be springtime.
Another thing that made sense to Keith was where the sun went to sleep. If Keith was a little boy and went to sleep under the covers of his bed, it seemed perfectly reasonable to think that the great King of the Fairies went to sleep under the covers of the earth, keeping himself warm with the folds of the hills and valleys. Keith went out to tell him goodnight as often as he remembered, and he meant it, too; for if the sun had a bad night, who knew but he might not get up in the morning?
Now one day at the end of the year, Keith went out as usual to give his evening salutation to the sun. It was quite cold out, and clouds had started to creep across the sky, but no snow had come yet. The ground was covered with damp red and gold leaves, and as Keith kicked them up in spurts, they caught the sun’s light and glowed, reminding him of jewels and sparks of fire – a sylvan treasure too big to hoard. He followed the old wood-path to the top of a hill, his customary greeting-place, and there stopped. The Elf-king was just reaching the edge of the sky, going behind another hill several valleys away. Keith waved at him and watched as the sun waved back, casting happy golden beams over the countryside. The great monarch slowly sank underneath his bed-clothes, the grey clouds coming across the sky and growing pink as they drew near to him. The whole scene was a fairytale picture-book.
The sun having gone to bed, Keith yawned and turned to head home. It was already growing dark in the shadow of the hill. The windowpanes on the upper rooms of his house were dim, like the thin ice covering the little pond nearby, but the lower level of the place was bright with the warmth of the fire on the hearth, as if the sun had come inside to stay. Keith was about to start back when a strange and beautiful sound struck his ears like a bell. It was singing, a thousand sweet voices singing a hymn as one, clear and yet far away as though it came from the stars. Wondering, Keith looked back, and saw a sight as fantastic and lovely as the sound. The heavenly court had been obscured by the clouds, but one star seemed to hang in the sky underneath them, shining more brightly than any Keith had seen except for the sun himself. Indeed, it seemed to Keith that here was the Queen of the Fairies. She looked calm and yet joyful, a sapphire gem crowning the hill where the Fairy-king had gone to bed.
The singing seemed to come from that direction, and Keith, enchanted, followed it and the star. The darkness came quickly, and with it came a cold rain, so that the night seemed like a living thing. Keith paid no attention to it, keeping his eyes on the fair Star-queen, who kept shining with a steady light even through the wetness. As he walked along the wood-path down one hill and up another, she slowly sank lower and lower, until at last he reached a hillcrest and found that she had disappeared altogether. The singing had stopped as well.
As Keith gazed about, a tired little traveler, he espied a cave at the bottom of the next hill. A golden glow came from its narrow mouth, as warm and inviting as an old inn. Yes; here, Keith thought, was the oldest of inns, here at the edge of the world where the Fairy-king went at night! The Fairy-queen must have meant to bring him here, to meet the King! Down the hillside he tumbled, the rain turning to sleet and then snow as he clambered up to the cavern’s entrance. In he went, and there saw a sight both familiar and strange, expected and yet a surprise, like all of Fairy-land.
All the cave was bright, and Keith could see everything perfectly. What he expected to see was the Sun-king and Star-queen waiting for him, their attendants on either side; but what he actually saw was the Nativity, with the animals and shepherds, and Joseph, and Mary holding the Christ-child at the center of it all, His face the source of the light. Keith was full of surprise, but it soon changed into an everlasting wonder.
What he had always felt was really true, truer than ever he realized. He saw all things as they were that night, although it would be a long time before he could say what he understood. His Fairy-world was a picture of heaven on earth.
Winking stars had been fairies to him; but now he knew that they were like angels, too. It was from that heavenly court that the singing had come. The sapphire Star-queen was Mary, Queen of the Angels, Queen of Heaven and Earth. Christ was the Sun-king and the King of Kings.
After a moment, Mary looked up from the Infant’s face and smiled at Keith. She glanced over at Joseph, who came and picked Keith up, silently bringing him to see Jesus. As Keith gazed at the shining, innocent Face, he began to realize entirely new things. He had thought of the sun as a giant; now, watching Jesus playing with the animals and laughing aloud, Keith realized that the sun was not only a giant, but also a Child. He had thought of the star as a queen; now he saw that the queen was also a Mother. He had thought that the king and queen lived in the center of the earth; now he saw that they were the center of the earth – its heart.
These and many other beautiful thoughts came to him as he stayed there, too many to describe. They imprinted themselves in his mind and remained with him ever after. He never forgot that holy vision, and the rest of his life seemed like a dream compared to that night.
For Keith’s parents, the night was a mystery. They had grown worried soon after sundown and spent the entire night looking for him. It was not until dawn that his father followed the wood-path to the cave. Keith had fallen asleep, but woke at the sound of his father’s voice. He came out upon the deep snow, alone. Nothing could be found in the cave but dead leaves and cold air.
To explain things to his parents was impossible for Keith, young as he was, but they were simply glad that he was safe and gave up asking questions when all he could say was that he had spent the night with the stars. That night changed him, however; the Child-giant had stood him on his head like the world in winter, and he saw everything in that topsy-turvy fashion for the rest of his life. He became a great writer, and wrote and said many extraordinary things; but they were all things that he had seen first on that most extraordinary night of all.
A lot of what Keith wrote was about Christmas; it became his favorite season. But one very small poem was the only thing he ever wrote about the night when he met
A Child of the Snows
There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.
Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.
And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.
The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.
Leave a Reply