Generally speaking, we may say that it is the conviction of the ordinary people of Poland that no country has been more entirely Christian from the beginning than their own. Our Lord was born in Poland, they might say, in the midst of a snowy winter and in a thatched cottage such as we still see today, and resembling those found in Ireland, in some isolated place in a distant forest. Although there are caves in certain rocky and mountainous regions in Poland, nevertheless they are remote from the; daily life of the majority of the people, and so scattered as to pass unnoticed. Moreover these caves have horrible stories attached to them. Either they are the more or less magical property of the devil who hides in them treasures of uncertain origin, or else they were used by the notorious brigands of the Tatras Mountains who have such a romantic history.

So then the infant Christ came into the world in the heart of the Polish winter and in a thatched cottage or perhaps under the tumbledown roof of a barn or in the stable of some poor peasant Szopka, a classical word meaning ‘Christmas Crib’ or a marionet theatre proper to the Christmas season, comes from szopa, a stall. The word seems to be connected with the French échoppe—like the word ‘shop’ in English for the pronunciation is the same, ‘sz’ being pronounced like ‘sh’. At any rate, in the Quo Vadis of Sienkiewicz, the giant Ursus in speaking of Christ ejaculated: ‘Oh, if only our people had been at Golgotha, they would have soon rescued the Son of God!’ Now we know that Ursus and Lydia, although unmistakeably borrowed from English tradition, represent the people of Poland.