'And Christmas trees in summer sigh with withered bough and leaf....'

It really is the oddest thing of all for a Welshman to be abroad at Christmas.

Where there should be driving winds and rain, instead there are flies and beating sun.

Instead of overcoats pulled tighly against the harsh weathers there are rather bikinis and vests flashing fields of tanned flesh. The piped carols seem displaced among the frenzy of spending that infects all the muddling masses that dart hither and thither among the arcades and streets.

Santas in shorts ringing bells beneath their sweat isn't somehow quite the same thing at all.

And parrots and sparrows and red blood beaked gulls, fanning themselves in the cool shade bears little comparison to shivering robins and badgering hedgehogs, leaving the faintest of footfalls in the frost frozen grass.

No roaring fires here, or street corner chestnuts, no drifitng snows or brown leafed puddles for well wrapped children to splash and dance through the lingering days to Christmas itself.

The haunted, hunted look is there though.

As those more obviously poor scrabble throught the cheap shops searching for something, anything to placate their demannding broods, their purses and wallets already light as they frantically frisk the shelves for something that somebody has possibly overlooked, or that was not good enough for theirs.

And the lonely at such times.

Those without friend or family, or those displaced by happenchance or circumstance, those that wonder the fuss yet envy those that can.

Lost lovers brooding or the death of a loved, the unwrapped present suddenly worthless and mute, a glaring reminder of yesterdays joy now ruined by time, as pointless as the paper within which the smiled treasure so silently rots.

In my damp Melbourne hotel, all such thought must collide, yet for many this time is a season of joy too.

So shaking off the doubts, the brooding mind turns to festivity and hopes, to those whom Christmas means yet something more than a moment to be endured or drowned in a bottle of scotch.

While travelling in the outback last week I met an Italian woman, with poor English (we both spoke a little French so we managed to muddle through somehow), and I asked her about Beffana.

She directed me to a little known poem by Louise Boyd at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000!).

The story goes that the three wise men stopped at Befana's house en-route while following the star to Bethlehem.

They bade her follow them, to witness the infant saviours arrival in this veil of tears, but Beffana chided them and drove them from her house for she was too busy cleaning her home to follow the wise men on their foolish errand.

This poem presents a slightly different version:

"'Come forth come forth, Beffana!"

She hears her neighbours say,

"come up the road to Bethlehem

The Wise Men pass to-day"



So busy was Beffana

she carcely turned her head;

Here was the waiting linen

The waiting scarlet thread.



Again they cried "Beffana,

It is a glorious sight

Three kings together journey

In crowns and garments bright!"



Her people's skillful daughtesr

As yet she had excelled.

Beffana saw the spindle

Her hand the distaff held;



Her husband's words must praise her.

Her children's voices bless

She eateth in her household

No bread of idleness.



So she made haste to answer,

"My house is all my care

No time have I for strangers

Towards Bethlehem that fare!



"Ere yet the daytime cometh

I give my household meat:

Mine is the best clad husband

That has an elder's seat.



"And merchants know my girdles

And my woven tapestry,

The glory of my purple

And silk most fair to see!"



But now her kinsmen shouted

"You know not what you miss!

There may be many pageants,

Yet none be like to this!



"Men say the three Kings journey

A wondrous thing to see

A babe born of a virgin

Foretold by prophecy.



"Oh! come: behold, Beffana!

For speech may never say

The splendor on their faces,

The kings that ride this way!"



Beffana still kept busy,

But lightly answered then:

"I will look out upon them

As they come back again!"



But all her friends and kinsmen,

In wondering delight,

Gazed till the Kings so gently

Had journeyed out of sight.



That eve Beffana's husband

Had sorrow in his gaze,

When of her work she told him,

Anticipating praise.



He did not quite upbraid her,

But out of ancient lore

he questions "Who hath profit

In laboring evermore?"



And spake of times for mourning

And times to laugh and sing;

Of times to keep or scatter,

Of times for everything.



And,sad, Beffana answered:

"My lord is right, but then

I surely will behold them

As they come back again"



Alas! alas! Beffana

Looked out from day to day

They came no more; God warned them

To go another way.



And she grew very weary

Who had so much to do

And never came the vision

That might her strength renew.



Beffana dieth never,

This earth is still her home;

Beffana looketh ever

For those who never come.


In Italian tradition, Beffana roams the earth, and visits each and every child, hoping to see for herself the face of the infant Jesus reborn.

She leaves toys for those children that have been good and coal for those that have been bad.

I think it's a charming tale, and a little different from the traditions that we in Britain tell our children. In fact I prefer it.

If anyone feels up to it, print it out and recite it to your gathered ones with their eyes full of tinsel and fire.

Merry Christmas everyone,

yechydda,