“O dear little Christ in the manger,
  Let me make merry with Thee. 
O King, in my hour of danger,
  Wilt Thou be strong for me?”

—­Adapted from the Latin of Jacopone da Todi. 
Thirteenth Century.

One night in December ...  Brother Francis, with one companion, was walking through the beautiful valley of the Velino River, toward Rieti, a little city where he came often on his way from Assisi to Rome.  To-night he had turned somewhat aside from the main road, for he wished to spend Christmas with his friend, Sir John of Greccio.  Greccio is a tiny village, lying where the foothills begin, on the western side of the valley.  The very feet of Brother Francis knew the road so well that he could have walked safely in the darkness, but it was not dark.  The full moon floated over the valley, making the narrow river and the sharp outlines of the snow-covered mountains shine like silver.  The plain and the lower hills were pasture land, and, not far from the road, on a grassy slope, the Brothers saw the red glow of an almost spent shepherds’ fire.  “Let us stop and visit our brothers, the shepherds,” said Francis, and they turned toward the fading fire.

There was no sense of winter in the air, scarcely a touch of frost, and the only snow was that on the silver peaks against the sky.  The shepherds, three men and one boy, lay sleeping soundly on the bare ground, with their sheepskin coats drawn closely around them.  All about them the sheep were sleeping, too, but the solemn white sheep dogs were wide awake.  If a stranger’s foot had trod the grass never so softly, every dog would have barked, and every shepherd would have been on his feet in an instant.  But the dogs trotted silently up to the Grey Brothers and rubbed against them, as if they said, “We are glad to see you again,” for they knew the friendly feet of the Little Poor Man, and they had more than once helped him to eat the bread that was his only dinner.  Followed by the dogs, Francis walked about among the shepherds, but they slept on, as only men who live out of doors can sleep, and Francis could not find it in his heart to waken them.  The sheep lay huddled together in groups for more warmth.  Around one small square of grass a net was stretched, and, inside it, were the mother sheep who had little lambs.  There was no sound except the faint cry, now and then, of a baby lamb.  The coals over which the shepherds had cooked their supper paled from dull red to grey, and there was only a thin column of smoke, white in the moonlight.  Francis sat down on a stone, and the largest of the white dogs pressed up against his knee.  Another went dutifully back to his post beside the fold where the mothers and babies slept.  The Italian hillside seemed to Francis to change to that of Bethlehem, which he had seen, perhaps, on his Eastern journey; the clear December night seemed like that of the first Christmas Eve.  “How these shepherds sleep!” he thought; “how they would awaken if they heard the ‘Peace on earth’ of the angels’ song!” Then he remembered sadly how the armies that called themselves Christian had, year after year, battled with the Saracens over the cradle and the tomb of the Prince of Peace.  The moonlight grew misty about him, the silver heights of the mountains and the silver line of the river faded, for the eyes of Brother Francis were full of tears.