Characters
The Star-Child
Pride humbled by suffering
A foundling discovered in the snow in a star-embroidered cloak, who grows up far more beautiful than the village children and far crueller. He stones beggars, tortures animals and denies his ragged mother, and is turned as ugly as a toad and an adder. Three years of wandering and slavery teach him pity; his beauty returns, he is revealed as a king's son, and he rules justly for three years before he dies.
The Woodcutter
Pity in poverty
A poor man with many mouths to feed who refuses to leave a baby to die in the snow, saying the cloak belongs to the child alone. He wins over his reluctant wife and brings up the Star-Child with his own children. He rebukes the boy for stoning the beggar-woman, reminding him that he himself was once shown pity. The grown Star-Child later sends him many rich gifts.
The Woodcutter's wife
A heart that softens
A hard-pressed mother who at first refuses to take in a changeling when her own children lack bread, and asks whether God's sparrows do not starve in winter. Shamed by her husband's question about the bitter wind that comes into a hard-hearted house, she weeps, takes the child in her arms and lays it beside her youngest. She later nurses the beggar-woman after she faints.
The beggar-woman
The rejected mother
A ragged woman with bleeding feet who has wandered the whole world looking for the son robbers stole from her in the forest. She recognises the Star-Child by his cloak and amber chain, but he stones her, mocks her and refuses to kiss her. She reappears in the crowd of the city where he has been a slave, and when he kneels and asks her forgiveness she is revealed as a Queen.
The leper
The disguised King
A leper in a cowl of grey linen, thrust out of the city and sitting by its gate, whose eyes gleam like red coals through the eyelets. Three times he begs the Star-Child for money, and three times the Star-Child gives him his piece of gold, though it means beating, chains and threatened death. At the end he stands beside the beggar-woman and is revealed as the King, the Star-Child's father.
The Magician
The cruel master
An old, evil-looking man, the subtlest of the magicians of Libya, who learned his art from one who dwelt in the tombs of the Nile. He buys the Star-Child as a slave for the price of a bowl of sweet wine, keeps him in a dungeon, and sends him to the wood for three pieces of gold, beating him when he fails. The Star-Child later banishes him.
The Hare
Kindness returned
A little hare caught in a hunter's trap, which the Star-Child frees although he is himself a slave. In return it leads him to the hidden pieces of gold: the white in the cleft of an oak, the yellow at the bottom of a pool and the red in a cavern. Each time he thanks it, it answers that he had pity on it first.
The Woodcutter's little daughter
The one kind playmate
The Woodcutter's little daughter, the only child who does not mock the Star-Child when he is turned ugly. She puts her hand on his shoulder, tells him his lost comeliness does not matter, and asks him to stay, promising that she will not mock him. He answers that he must go and find his mother and win her forgiveness.
The old priest
Teacher of mercy
The village priest who often sends for the Star-Child and tries to teach him the love of living things. The fly is thy brother, he tells him, and the blindworm and the mole each have their place in God's world. The Star-Child ignores him, frowning and flouting, and goes back to lead his companions in cruelty.