In plain words
At that midnight hour, they tell stories that a star fell from the sky, or came down to rest; and there are stories too that people from Tibet, and some others, found it and came to that village. These stories are read, and believed as well. But the true events were not like that. Stars do not drop; they do not slip and fall.
The king gave an order, meaning to count how many people there were in every village of his kingdom and find it out. Mary and Mary's husband, the two of them, set out for their own village to obey this order. The two of them had to be in that very village on the day the census was taken. But on the way Mary's labour pains began. A strange place: there was no one they knew. In a cowshed, between two cows, her husband cleared a little space and made it clean, told Mary to lie down there, and stood at that midnight hour looking about to see whether any women could be found to help; then he heard the cry of a baby; at that same moment, as a sign that the great soul had come as an Avatāra, the one who would bring the light of Jñāna to a world fallen into pitch darkness and, through the darkness of Ajñāna, into the grip of injustice, wrongdoing and Asatya, a wonderful light shone out in the sky! It is always so. The day darkness is destroyed: a sign full of greatness that this is the day the light of Jñāna was born! At the birth of an Avatāra it is natural for such things to happen.