The Irish have a saying: "A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard." A Christmas without snow is an augury, a sign, of hard times to come, an omen that the village churchyards will grow fat with new graves. The proverb reveals something of the character of the Irish people, and it reveals something of their history and struggles. It does not snow often in Ireland, and thus, it does not snow often on Christmas. A green Christmas is the norm, rather than the exception. Through much of the history of Ireland, fat churchyards were the norm, rather than the exception. And this struggle for survival, constant through hundreds of years, is reflected in the Irish celebration of even this most happy of holidays.

The Irish, of course, have another saying about snow on Christmas: "When it snows on Christmas Eve, the angels in heaven are plucking geese for the feast on the morrow." A white Christmas makes a thin churchyard. When it snows on Christmas, there will be a goose for dinner; there will be plenty through the coming year. Both proverbs say the same thing, but one speaks of a cup half empty; the other of a cup half full. The ability to look at something in two ways, one bitter and the other sweet, also reveals something of the character of the Irish. Christmas, like life, can be white and joyous; it can be green and melancholy; or, more likely, it can, and will, be both.

On Christmas Eve, the Irish put lighted candles in their windows. There is, of course, a reason. In Ireland, there is always a reason, always a story behind the custom. The candles, it is said, light the way for Mary and Joseph, who wander forever on Christmas Eve. But in the days when the English tried to suppress Roman Catholicism, the candles were a signal to passing priests of a house where Mass could be said in safety. So, to the Irish, the candles symbolize two things at once. One is joyous. One is sad.

On Christmas night, there is another custom - the telling of stories. The oldest member of the family gathers everyone around the hearth or the table and recounts the story of Mary and Joseph. The tales, of course, don't stop at Bethlehem. There are yarns about the family, about the famine, about the great heros and villians of Irish history, and even about the rocks and bogs and hills of the countryside. The possibilities are endless, because Irish folklore is endless. While the Swedes have 25 versions of the Cinderella story, the Irish have 311 and are still counting. Christmas night is not, of course, the only appropriate time for storytelling. Any occasion will do, and the Irish have a story for any and every occasion, for every event of life.

There is, naturally, a story behind all of this storytelling. For centuries, Irish children were deprived of an education either by poverty or by English law. The English believed that the Irish might be less troublesome if they were kept illiterate. The Irish, perhapes rebellious by nature, combated this business by conducting classes in secret in the countryside. Hidden behind bushes and hedges, priests taught a few children of every generation to read and write.

The Irish people's second, and most significant, defense against their lack of education was storytelling. By making up a story for every occasion, by extracting the meaning from every event of life and turning that understanding into a parable, the Irish perserved their culture and taught their children a sense of history, justice, and identity. Every village, no matter how small, had a professional storyteller, the shanachie (SHAN uh kee), who memorized the entire repertoire of village tales. He then passed the tales on to the children and on to the next shanachie. If life was short and bitter, the memory of that life was not. Filled with victory and joy, the memory became a living thread that passed through the consciousness of generations of Irish men and women. As long as the stories survived, the lives and events that inspired them survived and had meaning.

This system for perserving history and the collective wisdom of life is by no means unique. All tribes and cultures produce folklore. But in Ireland, the results were extraordinary. Storytellers beget storytellers. And the Irish begot a line of storytellers that rivals that of any country on earth: Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, George Moore, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Liam O'Flaherty, Frank O'Connor, James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett. And every Irish author, from Swift to Wilde to Joyce, filled his writings with that duel view, that joy interwoven with melancholy, that is characteristic of the Irish and their celebration of Christmas. Irish literature, like Irish life, is filled with laughter - but it is the kind that cuts with irony. There is always a story behind the story.