inding road. This structure is very like a Provencal hill-side, but
it is supposed to represent the rocky region around Bethlehem. At its
base, on the left, embowered in laurel or in holly, is a wooden or
pasteboard representation of the inn; and beside the inn is the stable:
an open shed in which are grouped little figures representing the
several personages of the Nativity. In the centre is the Christ-Child,
either in a cradle or lying on a truss of straw; seated beside him is
the Virgin; Saint Joseph stands near, holding in his hand the mystic
lily; with their heads bent down over the Child are the ox and the
ass--for those good animals helped with their breath through that cold
night to keep him warm. In the foreground are the two _ravi_--a man and
a woman in awed ecstasy, with upraised arms--and the adoring shepherds.
To these are added on Epiphany the figures of the Magi--the Kings, as
they are called always in French and in Provencal--with their train of
attendants, and the camels on which they have brought their gifts.
Angels (pendent from the farm-house ceiling) float in the air above the
stable. Higher is the Star, from which a ray (a golden thread) descends
to the Christ-Child's hand. Over all, in a glory of clouds, hangs the
figure of Jehovah attended by a white dove.

These are the essentials of the creche; and in the beginning, no doubt,
these made the whole of it. But for nearly six centuries the delicate
imagination of the Provencal poets and the cruder, but still poetic,
fancy of the Provencal people have been enlarging upon the simple
original: with the result that twoscore or more figures often are found
in the creche of to-day.

Either drawing from the quaintly beautiful mediaeval legends of the birth
and childhood of Jesus, or directly from their own quaintly simple
souls, the poets from early times have been making Christmas
songs--noels, or nouve as they are called in Provencal--in which new
subordinate characters have been created in a spirit of frank realism,
and these have materialized in new figures surrounding the creche. At
the same time the fancy of the people, working with a still more naive
directness along the lines of associated ideas, has been making the most
curiously incongruous and anachronistic additions to the group.

To the first order belong such creations as the blind man, led by a
child, coming to be healed of his blindness by the Infant's touch; or
that of the young mother