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 (under its original title of "The Christening of Maginnis Magee"),[1] the Christmas issue of that publication.

The Magee (son) overhears the conversation, and, thinking that a "christening" is like branding of animals, decides to make a run for it.

They see that they have no chance of catching the runaway boy, ‘so the priest, flung a flask at his head that was labelled ‘Maginnis Whisky’ (stanza 11, line 43, 44).

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