by Hank Davis
As commander of a legion he stood with Constantine the Great at Malvian Bridge when, beneath the emblem of the once-despised cross, Maximian’s youthful son defeated old Maxentius and won the purple toga of the Cæsars. With Constantine he sailed across the Bosporus and helped to found the world’s new capital at Byzantium.
Emperors came and went. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths arose in Italy, and strange, bearded men who spoke barbarian tongues ruled in the Cæsars’ stead. But though the olden land of Latium no longer offered reverence to the Empire, it owed allegiance to the name of Him the priests had crucified so long ago in Palestine; for nowhere, save in the frozen fjords and forests of the farthest North and in the sun-smit deserts of the South, did men fail to offer prayer and praise and sacrifice to the Prophet who had come to save His people from their sins, and had been scornfully rejected by their priests and leaders.
And now a mighty conflict rose between the Christians of the West and the followers of Mahound in the East; and Klaus, who knew the country round about Jerusalem as he knew the lines that marked his palms, rode forth with Tancred and Count Raymond and Godfrey of Bouillon to take the Holy City from the Paynims’ hands. With him rode his ever-faithful, thrice-beloved Unna, armed and mounted as a squire. Never since the morning of their marriage had she and he been out of voice-call of each other; for she had shared his life in camp and field, marching with the legions dressed in armor like a man, going with him to Byzantium when the new Empire was founded, riding at his side across the troubled continent of Europe when the old Empire broke to pieces and the little kings and dukes and princelings set their puny courts up in the midst of their walled towns. Sometimes she cut her long hair close and went forth in male attire; again, in those brief intervals of peace when they dwelt at ease in some walled city, she let her tresses grow and assumed the garb of ladies of the time, and ruled his house with gentleness and skill as became the mate of one who rated the esteem of prince and governor, general and lord, for her husband’s fame at weaponry and sagacity in war had given him great standing among those who had need of strong arms and wise heads to lead their soldiery and beat their foemen back.
Now, Klaus, with Unna fighting at his elbow as his squire, had assailed the walls when Godfrey and Count Eustace and Baldwin of the Mount leaped from the flaming tower and held the Paynims back till Tancred and Duke Robert broke Saint Stephen’s Gate and forced their way into the Holy City; but when the mailed men rode with martial clangor through the streets and massacred the populace, they took no part. In the half-darkness of the mosque that stood hard by the ancient Street of David where aforetime the young Prophet had trod the Via Dolorosa they saw old Moslems with calm features watch their sons’ heads fall upon the musty praying-carpets, then in turn submit to slaughter as the Christians’ axes split their skulls or swords ripped through their bellies. They saw the Paynim women cling in terror to their men-folk’s bending knees, what time they pleaded for mercy, panting and screaming till sword or lance ripped open their soft bodies and they cried no more. They tried to stop the wanton killing, and begged the men-at-arms and knights to stay their hands and show their helpless, beaten foemen clemency, whereat the priests and monks who urged the wearers of the cross to slay and spare not cried out on them, and swore they were no true and loyal lovers of the Prince of Peace.
But when the killing and the rapine ceased and men went forth to worship at the holy places, Klaus and Unna walked the city, and their eyes were soft with memories. “Here it was they led Him to the place of crucifixion,” Unna told a group of noble women who had come to make the pilgrimage to Calvary upon their knees, and, “Here He raised His hand and blessed the very men who did Him injury.” But when the Frankish women heard her they would not believe, but hooted her away; for the priests, who never till that time had seen Jerusalem, had shown them where the Master’s blessed feet had trod, and sooth, a learned holy man knew more of sacred things than this wild woman of the camp who wore her hair clipped short and swaggered it amongst the men-at-arms with a long sword lashed against her thigh!
But when she told them that she knelt upon those very stones and watched Cyrenian Simon bear the cross toward Golgotha, they shrank from her in terror and crossed themselves and called on every saint they knew for succor, and named her witch and sorceress. And presently came priests’ men who bound her arms with cords and took her to the prison-house beneath the Templars’ stable and swore that on the morrow they would burn her at the stake, that all might see what fate befell a woman who spake blasphemy within the very confines of the Holy City.
When she came not to their dwelling-place that night, Klaus was like a man made mad by those foul drugs the Paynims use to give them courage in the fight. And he went unto the prison-house and smote the warders where they stood, so that they fled from him as from a thing accursed, and with his mighty ax he brake the heavy doors that shut her in, and they went forth from that place and took to horse and rode until they reached the sea, where they took ship and sailed away. And no man durst stand in their way, for the fire of Northern lightnings burned in Klaus’s eyes, and he raged like a wild berserker if any bade them stand and give account of whence they came and where their mission led them.
The years slipped swiftly by like rapid rivers running in their courses, and Klaus and Unna rode the paths of high adventure. Sometimes they rested in the cities, but more often they were on the road, or fighting in the armies of some prince or duke or baron, and always fame and fortune came to them. But they could not abide in any place for long, for betimes they came in conflict with the priests; for when these heard them speak of the Great Teacher as though they had beheld Him in the flesh they sought to have them judged as witch and warlock, and so great was these men’s power that had they not been fleet of foot and strong of arm they were like to have been burned a dozen times and more.
“Now, by the Iron Gloves of Thor,” swore Klaus one time when they were flying from the priestly wrath, “meseemeth that of all men on the earth the priest doth change the least. ’Twas Caiaphas and his attendants whose foul plottings hanged our Master on the cross, and today the truth He died for is perverted and withheld by the very men who claim to be His priests and servants!”
One Yuletide Klaus and Unna lodged them in a little city by the Rhine. The harvest was not plentiful that year, and want and famine stalked the streets as though an enemy had set siege to the town. The feast of Christmas neared, but within the burghers’ houses there was little merriment. Scarce food had they to keep starvation from their bellies, and none at all to make brave holiday upon the birthday of the Lord.
Now as they sat within their house Klaus thought him of the cheerless faces of the children of the town, and as he thought he took a knife and block of wood and carved therefrom the semblance of a little sleigh the like of which the people used for travel when the snows of winter made the roads impassable for wheels or horsemen.
And when Unna saw his work she laughed aloud and clipped him in her arms and said, “My husband, make thou more of those, as many as the time ’twixt now and Christmas Eve permits! We have good store of sweetmeats in our vaults, even figs from Smyrna and sweet, dried grapes from Cyprus and from Sicily, and some quantity of barley sugar, likewise. Do thou carve out the little sleighs and I will fill them to the brim with comfits; then on the Eve of Christ His birthday we’ll go amongst the poorest of the townsmen and leave our little gifts upon their doorsteps, that on the morrow when the children wake they shall not have to make their Christmas feast on moldy bread and thin meat broth.”
The little sleighs piled up right swiftly, for it seemed to Klaus his fingers had a nimbleness they never had before, and he whittled out the toys so fast that Unna was amazed and swore his skill at wood-carving was as great as with the sword and ax; whereat he laughed and whittled all the faster.
It was bitter cold on Christmas Eve, and the members of the night watch hid themselves in doorways or crept into the cellars to shield them from
the snow that rode upon the storm-wind’s howling blast; so none saw Klaus and Unna as they made their rounds, leaving on each doorstep of the poor a little sleigh piled high with fruits and sweets the like of which those children of that northern clime had never seen. But one small lad whose empty belly would not let him sleep looked from his garret window and espied the scarlet cloak Klaus wore, for Klaus went bravely dressed as became a mighty man of valor and one who walked in confidence with princes. And the small boy marveled much that Klaus, the mighty soldier of whose feats and fame men spoke with bated breath, should stop before his doorstep. But anon he slept, and when he waked he knew not if it were a dream he dreamed, or if he had seen Klaus pass through the storm.
But when the church bells called the folk to prayer and praise next morning and the house doors were unbarred and the people found the sleighs all freighted with their loads of comfits on their thresholds, great and loud was the rejoicing, and little children who had thought that Christmas was to be another day of fasting and starvation clapped their hands and raised their voices in wild shouts of happy laughter. And Klaus and Unna who went privily about the streets saw their work and knew that it was good, and their hearts beat quicker and their eyes shone bright with tears of happiness for that they had brought joy where sorrow was before, and they clasped each other by the hand and exchanged a kiss like lovers when their vows are new, and each swore that the other had conceived the scheme, and each denied it; so in sweet argument they got them to the minster, and then unto their house, where their feast of goose and herbs was sweeter for the thought of joy they had brought to the children of the town.
But when the priests were told about the miracle of fruits and sweets that came unmarked upon the doorsteps of the poor they were right wroth, and swore this was no Christian act, but the foul design of some fell fiend who sought to steal men’s souls away by bribing them with Satan’s sweetmeats.
The lad whose waking eyes had seen Klaus’s scarlet mantle told his tale, and all the poor folk praised his name, and one and all they named him Santa Klaus, a saint who walked the earth in human guise and had compassion on the suffering of the poor.
But the churchmen went unto the city’s governor and said, “Go to, this man foments rebellion. He hath sought to buy thy people’s loyalty away by little gifts made to their children. Look thou to it, if thou failest to put him in restraint before he does more mischief thou art no friend of the landgrave from whom thou holdest this city as a fief.”
So the graf would fain have put them into prison on a charge of treason, but the townsmen came to them and warned them of the plot; so they escaped before the men-at-arms came clamoring at their door, and fled across the winter snows. Behind them swept a raving tempest, so that those who sought to follow were engulfed in drifting snows and lost their tracks upon the road, and finally turned and fought their way back to the city with the tidings that they surely must have perished in the storm.
But Klaus and Unna did not die, for the storm that followed hard upon their heels delayed its pace to cover their retreat, and anon they came unto another town where they rested safe throughout the winter, and in the springtime set out on their journeys once again.
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Now their travels took them to the Baltic shores, and as they passed across the country of the Lappmen they came into a valley ringed about with nine small hills, and no man durst go to that place; for ’twas said the little brown men of the land beneath the earth had power there, and whoso met them face to face was doomed to be their servant alway, and to slave and toil beneath the ground for evermore, because these people had no souls, but were natheless gifted with a sort of immortality, so that they should live until the final Judgment Day when they and all the great host of the olden gods should stand before the throne of the Most High and hear sentence of an everlasting torment.
But Klaus and Unna had no fear of the ælf people or of any harm that they might do, for both of them wore crosses round their necks, and in addition each was girt with a long sword, and the ax that had aforetime laid the mightiest of foemen in the dust was hung upon Klaus’s saddle-bow.
So they bent their road among the haunted Nine Hills, and behold, as they rode seaward came a great procession of the ælfmen bearing packs upon their backs and singing dolefully. “Waes hael to thee, small ælfmen,” Klaus made challenge; “why go ye sadly thus, singing songs of dole and drearihead?”
“Alack and well-a-day!” the ælf King answered; “we take our way to Niflheim, there to abide until the time shall come when we are sent to torment everlasting, for the people whom aforetime we did help, cry out upon us now and say that we are devils, and set no pan of milk or loaf of barley bread beside their doorstep for us; nor do they tell the tales their fathers told of kindly deeds done by the Little People, but only tales of terror and of wickedness. For this we are no longer able to come out and play upon the earth’s good face, neither to dance and sing by moonlight in the glades, and, worst of all, our human neighbors have no use for our good offices, but drive us hence with curse and song and bell and book and candle.”
Now Klaus laughed long and loud when he heard this, for well was he reminded of the time when he and Unna had to flee for very life because they had done kindness to the poor; so he made answer: —Would ye then find it happiness to serve your human neighbors, if ye could?”
“Aye, marry, that would we,” the ælf King told him. “We be great artificers in both wood and stone and metal. There are no smiths like unto us, nor any who can fashion better things of wood, and much would it delight our hearts to shape things for men’s service and bestow them on the good men of the farms and villages; but they, taught by their priests, will have none of our gifts. Why, to call a thing a fairy gift is to insult the giver in these days!”
Now as Klaus listened to this plaint there came a ringing as of many bells heard far away within his ears, and once again the voice he knew spake to him, and he heard: “Klaus, thou hast need of these small men. Take them with thee on the road which shall be opened to thy feet.”
So he addressed the ælfmen’s King and said: “Wouldst go with me unto a place of safety, and there work diligently to make the things which children joy to have? If thou wilt do it, I’ll see thy gifts are put into the hands of those who will take joy in them and praise thy name for making them.”
“My lord, if thou wilt do this thing for us, I am thy true and loyal vassal now and ever, both I and all my people,” swore the ælf King. So on the fresh green turf he kneeled him down and swore the oath of fealty unto Klaus, acknowledging himself his vassal and swearing to bear true and faithful service unto him. Both he and all his host of tiny men pronounced the oath, and when they rose from off their knees they hailed Klaus as their lord and leader.
Then from their treasure-store they brought a little sleigh of gold, no larger than the helmet which a soldier wears to shield his skull from sword-blows, but so cunningly contrived that it could stretch and swell till it had room for all of them, both the ælf King and his host of dwarfs, and Klaus and Unna and their steeds, as well. And when they had ensconced them in the magic sleigh they harnessed to it four span of tiny reindeer, and at once these grew until they were as large as war-steeds, and with a shout the ælf King bade them go, and straightway they rose up into the air and drew the sleigh behind them, high above the heaving billows of the Baltic.
“Bid them ride on until they have the will to stop,” Klaus ordered, and the ælf King did as he commanded, and presently, far in the frozen North where the light of the bridge Bifrost rests upon the earth, the reindeer came to rest. And there they builded them a house, strong-timbered and thick-walled, with lofty chimneys and great hearths where mighty fires roared ceaselessly. And in the rooms about the great hall they set their forges up, and the air was filled with sounds of iron striking iron as the nimble, cunning dwarfs fashioned toys of metal while others of their company plied saw and knife and chisel, making toys of wood, and others still mad
e dolls of plaster and of chinaware and clothed them in small garments deftly shaped from cloth which cunning ælfmen under Unna’s teaching fashioned at the great looms they built.
When Christmastide was come again there was a heap of toys raised mountain high, and Klaus put them in the magic sleigh and whistled to the magic reindeer, and away they sped across the bridge Bifrost where in olden days men said the gods had crossed to Asgard. And so swiftly sped his eight small steeds, and so well his sleigh was stocked with toys, that before the light of Christmas morning dawned there was a gift to joy the heart of children laid upon each hearth, and Klaus came cloud-riding back again unto his Northern home and there his company of cunning dwarfs and his good wife Unna awaited him, and a mighty feast was made, and the tables groaned beneath the weight of venison and salmon and fat roast goose, and the mead-horns frothed and foamed as they bid each other skoal and waes hael and drank and drank again to childhood’s happiness.
Long years ago Klaus laid aside his sword, and his great ax gathers rust upon the castle wall; for he has no need of weapons as he goes about the work foretold for him that night so long ago upon the road to Bethlehem.
Odin’s name is but a memory, and in all the world none serves his altars, but Klaus is very real today, and every year ten thousand times ten thousand happy children wait his coming; for he is neither Claudius the centurion nor Klaus the mighty man of war, but Santa Klaus, the very patron saint of little children, and his is the work his Master chose for him that night two thousand years ago; his the long, long road that has no turning so long as men keep festival upon the anniversary of the Savior’s birth.
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INTRODUCTION
NEWSLETTER