Infancy, Infancy

In his excellent blog post, "Bah - Humbug", Eddie Arthur tells us how there was not necessarily a Bethlehem donkey, and links to an equally liberal literal site that tells us the manger (which, it concedes, is mentioned in the Bible) may have not been in the stable.

Obviously, here at the Beaker Folk we have a problem with this sort of reconstructionism that would make a 19th Century German Form Kritik blush. Firstly because where else you gonna put a manger? The Nativity scene is gonna look pretty crummy if Jesus isn't out there not crying cos he is tucked up warm in the front room. But also because it flies so strongly against the evidence of our own eyes.

Not necessarily accurate

For do we not have, in St Dobbin's shrine, the earthly remains of the holy donkey itself which - returning from Glastonbury Tor one last time with Joseph of Arimathea - collapsed under the weight of souvenir dream-catchers and "goddess" paper weights, and was buried here in Husborne Crawley on the last leg of Joseph's trip to Walsingham?

We have many related relics. The horns of the ox in the stall. The bell that the Innkeeper rang to call "last orders" on that holy night. The can of Tennants Super that Shane MacGowan  dropped on Kirsty MacColl's toe in 1988*. And the metacarpal of the Little Drummer Boy. Though there is some doubt on this matter. Based on carbon dating, some archaeologists now think the Little Drummer Boy may actually have been Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones.

Frankly are you  going to not believe everything Eddie Arthur tells you? Would you not jump off a cliff if he told you not to? If so it's gonna be a dull old world. Instead get yourself down to the Beaker Bazaar. We've got some lovely souvenir models of the Six Wise People. I especially like Mindy, the priestess from Essex , bringing her gifts of white socks.

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* when asked if her foot hurt, Kirsty is said to have replied 'In these shoes?"