The Mark of Three

Wander around many Czech towns at this time of year and you might notice on lintels and doors the letters K, M and B written in chalk as above. Sometimes the letters come with the year and sometimes you will see several sets of letters dating back several years. You may wonder what these stand for. Perhaps it is a sign that the electricity meter has been read, you think, or some sort of building work. Perhaps it is a sign like those one used to see in English villages - a coded message from a tramp or hobo, gypsy or fellow inhabitant of the road, that this is a house where the inhabitants are generous.

In fact of those options you would be closer to the truth with the last - it is a sign that the inhabitants have been generous. But the visitors were not down-at-heel beggers, but three kings. Twelfth Night in the Czech Republic is known as Three Kings Day, because on that day children (and adults) dress up as the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (in Czech Kašpar, Melichar and Baltazar) and go around the streets asking for donations to charity. When the householder has put their donation in the tin, the "Kings" write the initials K M and B above the door. What do the initials stand for? I have heard different answers - one simply that they are the initials of the kings' names and another that it stands for the words: Christus mansionem benedicat (Christ, bless this house). Of course both answers could be true.

Following the Star

Today is Twelfth Night or Three Kings Eve in the Czech Republic. There will be a ceremony in Cesky Krumlov Town Square to mark the end of the Christmas celebrations, when children will dress up as the kings, sing and collect money for the Catholic Charity. On Friday afternoon we caught a taster of the ceremony when we came across three (rather young) kings standing on the wooden bridge at Latran holding a cardboard star on a stick and a collection box. The star reminded me of the shooting star which is the emblem of the Cowley Road Carnival back in Oxford, which I was involved in setting up.

Later that evening we were walking up the hill from Horice Na Sumave towards our home. The sky above our heads formed a huge starlit dome. The moon was in its crescent form and a planet shone brightly a little way from its tip. Suddenly across the sky, almost parallel with the horizon but arcing slightly down came a meteor. I have spoken before of the displays of falling stars we get sometimes on our night walks to our Czech home, but this was different. This must have been extremely close, as it was a large ball of light rather than a faint speck, and instead of falling straight, it sped like a jet fighter from north to south. The other amazing thing about it was the long tail of light that trailed behind it. I saw Halley's comet when it came close a few years ago and which it has been suggested was the star of Bethlehem, but this was more spectacular. Had I been a magi, I would have followed it, but I would have needed something faster than a camel to do so. It certainly unnerved me, I have never seen anything like it and its size and low downward projection meant that for a while I listened for an explosion when the thing hit earth, but none came. My Czech esoteric friends would see it as a portent of some forthcoming event. They are all saying that 2012 will be see end of the world, for a few minutes I thought they might have got it wrong by a couple of years.