Swaddling clothes were said to be a cloth tied by bandage-like strips, ensuring limbs would grow straight.
What exactly would a person think when an angel, bearing a child in
swaddling clothes, rings the doorbell and announces, as angels are wont to do in that startling way of theirs, "Behold the child of your great, great, great, great grandmother, who died in 1627.
They wrapped the child in
swaddling clothes, For the night was cold and raw And lay him down so gently There upon the straw.
More widely known is the Dresden Stollen, traditional Christmas oblong bread with ridges down the middle -- signifying the Christmas infant in
swaddling clothes.
With no crib to lay her new-born child, Mary (Alison Craig) wraps him in
swaddling clothes and places the tiny infant in a manger, complete with cosy blanket.
A note inside the
swaddling clothes offers 200 yuan ($25) a month to anyone prepared to care for the sprig.
Despite the oblique religious references to "
swaddling clothes," conversion," and "healing," there seem to be more than a few gaps in Black's understanding of Christian social teaching, which has been a staunch defender of the right to unionize and of the need for strong unionism in our society.
New born babies, for example, are not covered in
swaddling clothes, but in mucous, blood, and often defecate, and despite all the best intentions of our doctors and nurses, some children die.
But Rhea, his wife, saved the infant Zeus by substituting a stone wrapped in
swaddling clothes for Cronus to swallow and hiding Zeus in a cave on Crete.
In addition, if the prone position is coupled with an increase in the infant's body temperature -- either because of
swaddling clothes or a heated room--the risk of death increases further.
Like
swaddling clothes for invisible babies, these elements formed a distressing pile of organic structures, thrown on top of each other as if in a collective grave.
And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in
swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Pantagruel, Gargantua's giant son, who once got an arm out of his
swaddling clothes and ate the cow that was nursing him.
Rhea, meanwhile, gave Cronos a stone wrapped in
swaddling clothes, which he swallowed in place of Zeus.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in
swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
