The Snow-crèche
The Frost-Manger of the Newborn Winter King
The Snow-crèche is the cold manger in which the newborn Connor Frost was laid at Hollowfrost — “a trough of packed snow in the byre, for there was no room in the warm inn.” It is the humble cradle of the Year the Sun Hid, where the Snowfall-born child “lay perfectly still and cold to the touch, and frost-flowers bloomed where his breath had passed” (so the apocryphal Gospel of the Child Frost).
In Devotion
The Snow-crèche is a beloved focus of Firstsnow devotion: the faithful build small snow-crèches of ice and figures in home and Frosthall, depicting Wenna, Edrick, the shepherds with their rimeharts, and the three Cold-Readers with their gifts of clear ice, white salt, and silver. It teaches the faith’s love of lowliness and the cold over warm comfort — that the King of all keeping chose a manger of snow. The making of the snow-crèche opens the festal season.