The Holy Night

"As part of her collection «„Christ Legends“» Selma Lagerlöf wrote the story «„The Holy Night,“» a Christmas-themed tale first published in sometime in the early 1900s but before her death in 1940. It tells the story of the author at five years old who experienced a great sadness when her grandmother passed which made her recall a story the old woman used to tell about the Holy Night.

The story the grandmother tells is about a poor man who wanders around the village asking people for a single live coal to light his own fire, but keeps getting met with rejection until he runs into a shepherd who finds compassion in his heart to help, especially after seeing the state of the man's home and wife and child.

Read the full story below for a quality Christmas tale about how compassion can lead people to see miracles, especially around that special time of year.

The Christmas stories of the famous authors: Gilbert Keith Chesterton – A Christmas Carol, Lucy Maud Montgomery – A Christmas Inspiration, A Christmas Mistake, Christmas at Red Butte, Lyman Frank Baum -A Kidnapped Santa Claus, Mark Twain – A Letter from Santa Claus, Louisa May Alcott – A Merry Christmas, Leo Tolstoy – A Russian Christmas Party, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Christmas Bells, Nikolai Gogol – Christmas Eve, William Dean Howells – Christmas Everyday, Joseph Rudyard Kipling – Christmas in India, Lyman Frank Baum – Little Bun Rabbit, Elizabeth Harrison – Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe, John Milton – On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, Charles Dickens – The Chimes, Nathaniel Hawthorne -The Christmas Banquet, Hans Christian Andersen – The Fir Tree, Selma Lagerlöf – The Holy Night, Hans Christian Andersen – The Little Match Girl, Clement Moore – The Night Before Christmas, Henry van Dyke – The Other Wise Man, William Dean Howells – The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express, Beatrix Potter – The Tailor of Gloucester, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Three Kings, Anton Chehov – Vanka.

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