The Raven Who Kept Christmas

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The story

The storyteller describes a raven that roosts above a Swiss village church every winter, and the old custom that says it carries the Christmas wishes of the village to the mountain. This year the wishes come back unanswered.

How it begins

Sit nearer the fire, and I will tell you about the village of Sankt Anselm, which sits high in the Swiss mountains, where the snow comes early and stays late. It is a small place. It has one church, one inn, one baker who makes a very good pear bread, and one shop that sells candles to people who would rather not be seen buying them. Every winter, on the longest nights, the village does a strange and old thing, and it has been doing it for longer than anyone can remember. The villagers write their Christmas wishes on scraps of paper. They write what they want for the year…