Saint Nicholas resurrects three children
(legend)
In a poor family lived
three beautiful and hardworking children.
Because of hunger and to avoid dying,
they were picking in a large field.
One evening, in the dark night,
lost and cold,
they knock on the door of the butcher’s shop.
“Butcher, can we spend the night with you?”
“Come in, come in, my little children,
there is enough room for everyone.”
They barely enter when the butcher slaughters them,
cuts them into pieces and salts them, like little pigs.
After seven years, Saint Nicholas
walks through this very field.
He resolutely heads straight for the butcher.
“Butcher, can I spend the night with you?”
“Come, come, Saint Nicholas,
there is room with me, there really is no shortage,”
the butcher says kindly,
proud to be hosting a distinguished guest.
St. Nicholas enters and is already asking for dinner.
“Do you want some ham?”
“I don’t want it, it looks disgusting.”
“Do you want a piece of veal?”
“No, it doesn’t look edible!”
“I want the very meat for salami,
which has been salted for seven years!”
When the butcher hears these words,
he runs out the door and howls into the dark night.
“Butcher, butcher, don’t run away, come back,
repent, God will forgive you!”
St. Nicholas places three fingers
on the edge of a wooden bucket and prays.
Murdered children are crawling out of the barrel.
The first notes: “I slept well.”
The second sighs: “I wish I had slept. The night was too short.”
The third one says: “I thought I was already in heaven!”
Published by the French romantic writer and poet Gerard de Nerval (1808-1855) in the collection Les Filles du feu (Daughters of Fire).
Edited by Bogdan Vidmar (3.12.2018)
