Other old accounts state that their journey occupied twelve days only: "they took neither rest nor refreshment; it seemed to them indeed as one day; the nearer they approached to Christ's dwelling, the brighter the star shone." [Footnote 51]
[Footnote 51: Early Christian Legends.]
Drawing described below.
There appears to have been no decided opinion or tradition as to the form of the star; it is shown thus by Albert Durer, in an old book which I have by me of 1519: it is drawn with eight points, the lowest one being much longer than the others; in another book, 1596, I find it represented as a star of six points; in some old pictures it is shown as a sort of comet, and it is described to have been "as an eagle flying and beating the air with his wings," having within the form and likeness of the Holy Child.
In "Dives and Pauper," printed in 1496, we gather the following account of it:
"Dives. What manner of star was it then?
"Pauper. Some clerks tell that it was an angel in the likeness of a star, for the kings had no knowledge of angels, but took all heed to the star. Some say that it was the same child that lay in the ox-stall which appeared to the kings in the likeness of a star, and so drew them and led them to himself in Bethlehem."
I wish it were possible to give here a quaint illustration of the journey of the Three Wise Men, from a sheet of carols printed in 1820, which forms one of the wood-cuts procured with no little difficulty from the publisher by Mr. Hone, and is but little known.
The history of the Magi is even traced further; after their return to their own country they were baptized by St. Thomas the Apostle, became missionaries with him, and were, it is said by some, martyred.
Their journeyings did not, however, end with their deaths—their bodies were translated to Constantinople, thence to Milan, and afterward to Cologne, where they are still preserved in the cathedral, and their history recorded in a series of frescoes. Their shrine at Cologne was once exceedingly rich and magnificent, but during the excitement of the first French revolution many of the jewels which adorned the monument were sold and replaced by paste or glass counterfeits. The following description of their tomb I gather from Mr. Fyfe's book on "Christmas:"