[22]
ST STEPHEN AND HEROD
Sloane MS., 2593, fol. 22 b; British Museum.
The manuscript which preserves this delightful little legend has been judged by the handwriting to be of the age of Henry VI. It was printed entire by Mr T. Wright, in 1856, for the Warton Club, under the title, Songs and Carols, from a manuscript in the British Museum of the fifteenth century, the ballad at p. 63. Ritson gave the piece as 'A Carol for St Stephen's Day,' in Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 83, and it has often been repeated; e. g., in Sandys' Christmas Carols, p. 4, Sylvester's, p. 1.
The story, with the Wise Men replacing Stephen, is also found in the carol, still current, of 'The Carnal and the Crane,' Sandys, p. 152, in conjunction with other legends and in this order: the Nativity, the Wise Men's passage with Herod, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, Herod and the Sower.
The legend of Stephen and Herod occurs, and is even still living, in Scandinavian tradition, combined, as in English, with others relating to the infancy of Jesus.
Danish. 'Jesusbarnet, Stefan og Herodes:' A, Grundtvig, No 96, II, 525. First printed in Erik Pontoppidan's little book on the reliques of Paganism and Papistry among the Danish People, 1736, p. 70, as taken down from the singing of an old beggar-woman before the author's door.[184] Syv alludes to the ballad in 1695, and cites one stanza. The first five of eleven stanzas are devoted to the beauty of the Virgin, the Annunciation, and the birth of the Saviour. The song then goes on thus:
6
Saint Stephen leads the foals to water,
All by the star so gleaming:
'Of a truth the prophet now is born
That all the world shall ransom.'
7
King Herod answered thus to him:
'I'll not believe this story,
Till the roasted cock that is on the board
Claps his wings and crows before me.'
8
The cock he clapped his wings and crew,
'Our Lord, this is his birthday!'
Herod fell off from his kingly seat,
For grief he fell a swooning.