The Manger and Other Stories

By Daniel Dacre

A long time ago an Anglo-Saxon poet set in verse the Dream of the Rood. It is a tale told in part from the ‘point of view’ of the Cross (Rood), of how it was felled in a forest, of its intended fate as gibbet for a criminal and of its true destiny as the Cross of Christ. It could be the earliest thing written in English – albeit a kind we could not easily read – that we know. Written, we suppose, to inspire a people, martial and pagan, to accept a new master, the Christ, who is cast as a hero in forms and imagery familiar to them.

Join me on an imaginative journey through the life of Christ viewed from the 'point of view' of different things, starting with, of course, the manger itself. Journey to Jerusalem with the rein of a donkey. See the Wedding of Cana through the view of one of the great jars that stood there. How would it have been to take a 'roof's-eye-view' of the healing of the paralysed man? What would Zacchaeus' conversion have looked like to the Jericho Road? Or imagine you were a pebble carried into Jerusalem with the triumphal entry of the Christ at the start of that momentous week. These and other beautifully written stories are to be found here.

In my own way, I’ve tried to wonder what various stories in the life of Christ might have looked like from these unusual views. The moods and tone change from object to object as we visit different points in the Gospels. I have embellished freely, invented little folklores and thrown in various asides. The greater part of this is fanciful. I hope, though, that I am continuing in a tradition of ‘creative reverence’ to honour words and a message that will outlast my own.

In order the stories are: MANGER(Nativity), ROPE (12-year-old Jesus journeys to Jerusalem), JAR (Wedding Feast at Cana), ROOF (Healing of the Paralysed Man), GRASS (Feeding of the 5000), MUSTARD TREE (About parables), WATER IN THE WELL (Samaritan woman), JERICHO ROAD (Zacchaeus), COIN (Taxes to Caesar question), PEBBLE (Holy Week), NET (Resurrection encounter).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Dacre
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9780957097131

Daniel Dacre

Hi, I'm Daniel Dacre. I have collaborated in the publication of a number of works through the years. 'Solomon Seal and the Darkley Troll' is my first work of young fiction. I wanted it to be sad, frightening, funny, uplifting and, somehow, true. I hope I have succeeded. Inspired by the great Anglo-Saxon classic 'The Dream of the Rood', I wrote 'The Manger and Other Stories'. Each story takes an 'object's-eye-view' in the unfolding of one of the famous stories in the Gospels. Embellishing freely, I have nonetheless written each story in a spirit of 'creative reverence'. 'One Year Under Weeping Mountain' captures the travails of a young southern African nation as it seeks to develop. It is shown through the experience of an English volunteer expatriate teacher. Although a work of fiction, it is in part based on true life occurrences. 'The Word' is a post-apocalyptic epic that envisions a world many centuries after a cataclysmic war. When a warlike people of the north threaten the Island, the hope of its defenders rest on the frail shoulders of a little girl. An extraordinarily gifted girl who must survive at all costs. I live in the Royal County of Berkshire. I can be contacted at [e-mail].

Book preview

The Manger and Other Stories

Daniel Dacre

© Daniel Dacre, 2011

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-0-9570971-3-1

Contents

Preface

MANGER

ROPE

JAR

ROOF

GRASS

MUSTARD TREE

WATER IN THE WELL

JERICHO ROAD

COIN

PEBBLE

NET

Preface

A LONG TIME ago an Anglo-Saxon poet set in verse the Dream of the Rood. It is a tale told in part from the ‘point of view’ of the Cross (Rood), of how it was felled in a forest, of its intended fate as gibbet for a criminal and of its true destiny as the Cross of Christ. It could be the earliest thing written in English – albeit a kind we could not easily read – that we know. Written, we suppose, to inspire a people, martial and pagan, to accept a new master, the Christ, who is cast as a hero in forms and imagery familiar to them.

In my own way, I’ve tried to wonder what various stories in the life of Christ might have looked like from the ‘point of view’ of an object. The moods and tone change from object to object as we visit different points in the Gospels. I have embellished freely, invented little folklores and thrown in various asides. The greater part of this is fanciful. I hope though that I am continuing in a tradition of ‘creative reverence’ to honour words and a message that will outlast my own.

MANGER

Time: in the Reign of Caesar Augustus

Place: Bethlehem, the Roman Province of Syria, Iudaean Annex

Thing: a manger made from a discarded block of Jerusalem stone

I WAS BORN when the days themselves were young. In the depths of the sea from countless living things I came to be. In pressure and upheaval and the groaning of the earth, I was shaped and folded into hardness. The hardness of the firmament. Then, with the rising of mountains, I rose. Once on the bed of a sea and then a part of the sheerness of a mountain!

All in the slow press of time.

Slow to the eyes of humans. ‘As ancient as the hills,’ they say. But I tell you solemnly, there is One who is truly the Ancient of Days. Ancient in a way not of hills, nor of mountains, nor of the deeps, nor of the heavens.

But the One who is before all worlds.

And so in this small time, after Summers numberless, the tribes came. For a thousand generations, men looked on us. First, as a rough-toothed barrier, sharp against the sky, they saw us. Then we were to them Spring pasture lands – and then fastnesses.

I will never forget the days when they began eyeing and admiring us as seams of stone. It was after they had learnt to harvest from the earth the secret stone they call ‘metal’. For then they brought axe and adze and stone saw. Tools first of copper and bronze, then of hard iron. One stonemason, with head turned slightly this way and that, saw me deep in my womb of hardness. In cutting, chipping and shaping, I came to be as a thing second born.

And do you know that in all those aeons of time, after blood and battles, cities and sieges, I have only four things I really wish to tell you? The first is my greatest joy, the second my greatest sorrow, the third my deepest secret and the last my heartfelt hope.

My greatest joy is to feed the living. I wasn’t always a manger, you know, and I didn’t always live here. But I belong in this town. It is called Bethlehem – the ‘house of bread’. And why should I not feed the living in a house of bread? I am a manger after all. For five hundred years I have had this one delight. From the time of Exile to this very day, feeding the livestock of the sons of men. The bowl in me was not just cut away by an adze but worn under the muzzles and mouths of cattle and donkey, sheep and goat. Five hundred years of being tickled by nuzzling donkeys, of being chafed by oxen tongues! Season after season. In Winter the animals bleat and bellow steam in this cold shack, for it is barely more than a cut-out from the rock. But what rock! It is rock of my rock.

It is Winter now. The dawn light reaches in long and warm across me as the animals grunt and chew through their morning fodder.

To feed the living. What a joy!

And now, my greatest sorrow. Rachel died nearby. Though this was a great sorrow, it is not my sorrow. She died giving birth to the youngest of twelve great patriarchs of the twelve great tribes of these lands. I envy her like I envy the dust to which she returned. For once in her as in the ground, living things came to be and grow and flower.

Nothing grows in me.

Do you know that when the stonemason chipped and shaped me, I was proud of being a beautiful dressed block of Jerusalem stone, fine and flawless? I