Free How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas by Jeff Guinn Page B

leadership.”
    Britain itself often looked to Arthur for inspiration, though the man of its legends had little in common with the war chief who’d joined us. Ordinary people comforted themselves in times of trouble—and, in Britain, it seemed always to be a time of trouble—with tales of Arthur the mythical king, who defeated enemies with the help of a magic sword and the advice of a wizard. There were tall tales about Nicholas and Attila, too, but the stories about Arthur were, at this time, the most widespread. We would tease him about them, always understanding that if they brought some comfort to frightened people, then they were good rather than harmful.
    We had great adventures in Britain and everywhere else we went. My husband, Nicholas, wrote about many of these in his own book, so in most cases I won’t repeat them here. It was our great good fortune to be befriended by Charlemagne, the king of the Franks who became the leader of the Holy Roman Empire. Thanks to his generosity, we were less dependent on carving and selling wooden book covers to pay for our gifts and travel costs. We studied with great interest events in far-off lands—how a man named Muhammad, for instance, founded the religion of Islam, and how there were rumors that Viking sailors had crossed a great ocean and discovered some vast, fertile new land. Though we could not travel to these places yet—our gift-giving services were so badly needed where we were—Nicholas, Felix, and I declared that someday we would explore them for ourselves. Arthur’s main interest was Britain; Attila and Dorothea remained especially devoted to Europe and Asia Minor.
    Sometime in the middle of the twelfth century, the nature of our mission changed. We still gave gifts, but of a different sort. As Britain, Europe, and Asia continued to be torn by war—the latest flare-ups were called “the Crusades,” with Christian rulers raising armies to march to Jerusalem and try to take back that holy city from the Muslims—our efforts to bring comfort and happiness to children began to seem almost foolish. If we left food, it was eaten and gone in a day or two. Cloaks and sandals wore out, if the children didn’t outgrow them first. The times people of all ages had to live in seemed to be getting worse rather than better. What difference did our gifts of a little food or new clothing make, really?
    One night in 1194, Nicholas called us together for a full, honest discussion. We all agreed something had to be done differently. We couldn’t do much to lessen the violence of the world, but at least we could find a way to carry out our own mission more effectively. I spoke for a while about the difference between the body and the spirit. Food and clothing were temporarily good for the body, but we needed to give gifts that gave more lasting comfort to the spirit. It was Dorothea, the quietest among us, who eventually made the best suggestion—she thought we should give gifts of toys instead. Now, at this time toys were not something every child, or, indeed, many children, actually owned. Those that existed were very primitive—marbles made of clay, hoops fashioned from bits of wood, dolls carved from wood or sewn together from rags. But the more we thought about it, the more sense the idea of giving toys made. Bread or fruit would be gone after one meal; children could play with toys for years, and in the process forget, at least for a while, about the dangerous world all around them.

    Dorothea
    We couldn’t purchase toys as we could buy cloaks or loaves of bread. There were no companies that made them, no stalls full of toys in city marketplaces. So we learned to make them ourselves, and it took some time. The first dolls Dorothea and I sewed looked more like socks or mittens than pretend people. Our earliest attempt to make marbles found us using the wrong sort of clay, so they didn’t roll straight and then