The Queen has put this precocious flower fairy in charge. She just happens to be one of the characters in "The Return of the Brownies."

Find the Brownies HERE

On this site, (says Marigold) is my very own bookclub for kids, a special Sherlock Holmes page, Martha Heller's dolls, and many other interesting things.

ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT FAIRIES AND THE ELEMENTAL GNOME CALLED "BROWNIE"

The magic of fairies is not an end in itself. Its virtue is in its operations. Among these are the satisfactions of certain primordial human desires, one of which is to survey the depths of time and space, and another is to hold communion with other living things.
J.R.R. TOLKIEN

In the 4th Century in Turkey, in Myra, then part of the Byzantine Empire, there lived a Christian Bishop whose name was Saint Nicholas. He gave gifts to the poor, especially wedding dowries to three impoverished sisters who without husbands would have been forced to become prostitutes. For this, his great generosity, he was always remembered. Over the centuries his fame spread to Europe, and it was the Dutch, in the 17th Century who brought the legend to America. They called him "Sinterklaas." This funny name was changed to Santa Claus by Washington Irving in 1809.

The "Christmas Stocking" was eventually to be associated with St Nicholas. At he time of the Winter Solstice, in Germany, the children would fill their boots with carrots, straw and sugar and place them near the chimney, in order that Wotan, their god could thereby feed his horse, and reward them by stuffing their boots with gifts and candy.

Both Wotan, and St Nicholas were imaged as older men with wonderful white beards, and so they became Santa Claus, and the children's boots, stockings. Washington Irving's version had him portly (fat), bearded, pipe smoking, and wearing a green coat. It was the Coca Cola Company, in their ads, that dressed him in red and white.

In England, he is known as Father Christmas, a reference to his modest beginning as a Christian Bishop. And this generous Bishop is what started it all; the gift of giving, and thus his spirit watches over the children as they dream of sugarplums and fairies and await the dawn.