Made it! Here is my final Mary Stewart Advent Calendar post, I am so pleased that I have managed to post about Mary Stewart every day for 24 days. I have really enjoyed choosing little facts and pieces of writing to share. Since it is Christmas Eve, I am sharing two things today.

Firstly, it was #OnThisDay Christmas Eve 1953 that Hodder & Stoughton accepted  Madam, Will You Talk?  for publication. What an amazing Christmas present for Mary Stewart – and for everyone who enjoys her writing.

I shared this fact previously, in my blogpost Where does that title come from? So I am also going to share a poem by Mary Stewart.

Christmas Eve seems like a perfect time to post Mary Stewart’s ‘Carol’, a poem that appears at the beginning of The Hollow Hills and is also included in Frost on the Window and other Poems.

Carol

There was a boy born,

A winter king.

Before the black month

He was born

And fled in the dark month

To find shelter 

With the poor.

He shall come

With the spring

In the green month

And the golden month,

And bright

Shall be the burning

Of his star.

From The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart. Published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1973. Copyright Mary Stewart.

Merry Christmas!