The Wondrous Child
Book Excerpt
May was surprised, and, for a moment, did not think of doing anything; she merely pointed, and said:
"Look, look!"
Sibold ran forward, and lifted up the leaf of an enormous Parsley plant; and there - oh, joy of joys! - was lying the dearest little Baby Boy that ever was seen.
May knelt down beside him, and lifted him up, and began to rock him, and sing "Hush a bye, baby," whilst Sibold looked on complacently. However, after a while he got impatient, and said:
"Look here, you know, I found that Baby; he belongs to me."
"Oh, please," said May, "I heard him first. He is mine."
"He is mine," said Sibold; "He is mine," said May; and both began to get a little angry.
Suddenly they heard a low groan - a sort of sound like as if a tune had a toothache. Both children looked down in alarm, and saw that the poor Baby was dead.
They were both horrorstruck, and b
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It's amazing that such an emotionally melodramatic tale was written by the same author who in 1897 would pen his most famous work, Dracula.
"The Wondrous Child is a children's fairy tale written by Bram Stoker and published in 1881 in an anthology of other children's fairy tales entitled Under The Sunset.
The tale is quite saccharin by today's standards and is basically a morality tale about Sibold and May, a young brother and sister who travel in a dream to an island where they encounter the Child spoken of in Isaiah 11:6: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."
It's amazing that such an emotionally melodramatic tale was written by the same author who in 1897 would pen his most famous work, Dracula.
C. Alan Loewen
http://literary-equine.livejournal.com/
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