Harken!
 Out in the clear cold night
 small footsteps resound
 and the voices of the children of Earth
 come hushed through the keyholes
 with an ominous sound.

 All the year round
 they work in the ground
 scratching and fiddling
 crunching and nibbling
 at the trunk of our Earth.
 How they laugh and delight
 at the thought of the plight
 that will fall on the land of our birth!

 Hark! In the still of the night
 you can hear them shout
 to the sprites to come out
 in the light
 that the stars shed on earth
 to rejoice at the birth
 of a Child.

 Oh, the elfins of fun
 though unwelcome and shunned
 have come on the Earth to abide
 for it's Yuletide, again,
 its Yuletide.

 And down
 deep in the ground
 the trunk thrives and grows
 preparing new woes
 which forever abound
 for the elfins of fun,
 So our Earth
 will never come down
 as they hope and we fear
 at the end of the year,
 for the Child that was born
 has removed with his birth
 one more thorn
 and has given the elfins of fun
 who enjoy without thought
 the freedom the've got
 the beginning of new circles to come.

 The girls and the wives
 are prepared for the sprites
 leaving pancakes and pies behind
 for the elfins to find
 and a sieve for the elfins to count
 till dawn approaches
 and colors the ground
 and the cocks start walking around.

 Then down they go
 till day is spent
 and night arrives
 and they hide
 as long as on earth they abide
 for it's Yuletide again
 its Yuletide.
 

 ***********

 this poem was written written 40 years ago,
 as homework for the english class, and describes a folk
 belief in modern Greece: The earth grows from the trunk
 of a tree and the "kalikantzaroi", naughty elfs,leprechaun like, try to
 gnaw at it in order to destroy the Earth. They are
 forbidden to go up on the face of the earth all year
 except during the twelve days of Christmass , during
 the night, where they wreak havoc with animals and men
 caught out in the night and unprepared for them.
 At cock's crow  they have to hide because the light of day destroys them.
 In the meanwhile the trunk, which had become thin as a pencil during the
 ravages of the year, regenerates.

 Thus Christ was born so that the earth precariously balancing on a pencil thin
stalk, will not fall in the abyss.

 This belief is honored by the Orthodox church. On Janury 6, the priests go
 house by house and bless the dwellings chasing the sprites away with
 holy water.