A Bush Christening

A Bush Christening is a humorous poem by Australian writer and poet Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson. It was first published in The Bulletin magazine on 16 December 1893, the Christmas issue of that publication.^[1] It has been called "a rollicking account of how the traditional pre-occupations, whisky and religion, come together".^[2]

Plot summary

Michael Magee is the father of a ten-year-old boy who has never been christened. Magee lives "On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few," and rarely sees a clergyman. By chance a priest passes by one day and he and Magee decide to christen the boy as soon as possible. The boy overhears the conversation, and, thinking that a "christening" is rather like the branding of cattle, decides to make a run for it. The priest chases after him but seeing that he has no chance of catching the runaway flings a flask of Maginnis's whisky which hits the boy on the head. Thereafter the boy is known as "Maginnis".^[1]

See also

• 1893 in poetry
• 1893 in literature
• 1893 in Australian literature
• Australian literature

Notes

The poem has been linked by Australian literary researcher Lucy Sussex to an anonymous story, "Peggy's Christening", in the Colonial Monthly, April 1868.^[2]

Further publications

• The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses by Banjo Paterson (1895)
• From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore (1964)
• A Treasury of Colonial Poetry (1982)
• Singer of the Bush, A. B. (Banjo) Paterson : Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Rosamund Campbell and Philippa Harvie (1983)
• My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer (1985)
• A Vision Splendid : The Complete Poetry of A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson (1990)
• A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G. A. Wilkes (1991)

References

1. Austlit - "A Bush Christening" by A. B. Paterson
2. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, 2nd edition, p136