Advent Book Quiz Day 21

Day twenty one of our festive quiz

One of our favourite classic children's books for you today. Tell us the author and title by submitting a comment below, and remember you still have until 1st January to catch up with any extracts you haven't identified yet. Answers and winner will be revealed on 3rd January.

'And now,' the Bishop said, 'Mr. Hawlings will give you a much older version of the Punch and Judy play, which his grandfather used to play upon the roads.' It was a very interesting performance and the children hugely enjoyed it, but not so much as they had enjoyed those magical tricks which he had played at Seekings.   

Presently, the curtain fell and that was the end of Kay's hopes of speaking to the old man, for the Bishop at once said, 'And now, everybody, I want you to move into the next room, there behind you, to dance round our Christmas Tree and receive the gifts allotted to you.' 

The door opened behind the company. Beyond the room in which they had seen the show was another room, also a part of the hostel. Pilgrims had come to that place in hundreds in the Middle Ages, for the Cathedral had then held the Shrine of the great Saint Cosric, Saxon King and Martyr, who had worked such famous miracles in the cure of Leprosy, and Broken Hearts. 

In the midst of this room was the biggest and most glorious Christmas Tree that had ever been seen in Tatchester. It stood in a monstrous half-barrel full of what looked like real snow stuck about with holly and mistletoe. Its bigger boughs were decked with the glittering coloured glass globes which Kay so much admired. The lesser boughs were lit with countless coloured electric lights like tropical fruits: ever so much better, Kay thought, than those coloured candles which drip wax everywhere and so often set fire to the tree and to the presents. At the top of this great green fir-tree was a globe of red light set about with fiery white rays for the Christmas Star.