[238] b, second paragraph. Professor George Stephens informs me that the miracle of the cock is depicted, among scenes from the life of Jesus, on an antependium of an altar, derived from an old church in Slesvig, and now in the Danish Museum. Behind a large table sits a crowned woman, and at her left stands a crowned man, who points to a dish from which a cock has started up, with beak wide open. At the queen's right stands an old woman, simply clad and leaning on a staff. This picture comes between the Magi announcing Christ's Birth and the Massacre of the Innocents, and the crowned figures are judged by Professor Stephens to be Herod and Herodias. Who the old woman should be it is not easy to say, but there can be no connection with St James. The work is assigned to the last part of the fourteenth century.
[239]. Most of the literature on the topic of the restoration of the roasted cock to life is collected by Dr R. Köhler and by Ferdinand Wolf, in Jahrbücher für romanische u. englische Literatur, III, 58 ff, 67 f. Dr Köhler now adds these notes: The miracle of St James, in Hermann von Fritslar's Heiligenleben, Pfeiffer's Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, I, 168 f; Hahn, Das alte Passional (from the Golden Legend), p. 223, v. 47-p. 225, v. 85; Lütolf, Sagen, Bräuche und Legenden aus Lucern, u. s. w., p. 367, No 334; von Alpenburg, Deutsche Alpensagen, p. 137, No 135; Sepp, Altbayerischer Sagenschatz, pp 652 ff, 656 f.
[239] b. Three stone partridges on a buttress of a church at Mühlhausen are thus accounted for. In the early days of the Reformation a couple of orthodox divines, while waiting dinner, were discussing the prospect of the infection spreading to their good city. One of them, growing warm, declared that there was as much chance of that as of the three partridges that were roasting in the kitchen taking flight from the spit. Immediately there was heard a fluttering and a cooing in the region of the kitchen, the three birds winged their way from the house, and, lighting on the buttress of Mary Kirk, were instantly turned to stone, and there they are. Thüringen und der Harz, mit ihren Merkwürdigkeiten, u. s. w., VI, 20 f. (Köhler.)
[240] a. The monk Andrius has the scene between Judas and his mother as in Cursor Mundi, and attributes to Greek writers the opinion that the roasted cock was the same that caused Peter's compunction. Mussafia, Sulla legenda del legno della Croce, Sitz. Ber. der phil.-hist. Classe der Wiener Akad., LXIII, 206, note. (Köhler.)
"About the year 1850 I was on a visit to the rector of Kilmeen, near Clonakilty, in the county of Cork. My friend brought me to visit the ruins of an old castle. Over the open fireplace, in the great hall there was a stone, about two or three feet square, carved in the rudest fashion, and evidently representing our Lord's sufferings. There were the cross, the nails, the hammer, the scourge; but there was one piece of sculpture which I could not understand. It was a sort of rude semi-circle, the curve below and the diameter above, and at the junction a figure intended to represent a bird. My friend asked me what it meant. I confessed my ignorance. 'That,' said he, 'is the cock. The servants were boiling him for supper, but when the moment came to convict the apostle he started up, perched on the side of the pot, and astonished the assembly by his salutation of the morning.'" Notes and Queries, 5th series, IX, 412 a. (Köhler.)
A heathen in West Gothland (Vestrogothia) had killed his herdsman, Torsten, a Christian, and was reproached for it by Torsten's wife. Pointing to an ox that had been slaughtered, the heathen answered: Tam Torstenum tuum, quem sanctum et in cœlis vivere existimas, plane ita vivum credo prout hunc bovem quem in frusta cædendum conspicis. Mirum dictu, vix verba finiverat, cum e vestigio bos in pedes se erexit vivus, stupore omnibus qui adstabant attonitis. Quare sacellum in loco eodem erectum, multaque miracula, præsertim in pecorum curatione, patrata. Ioannis Vastovii Vitis Aquilonia, sive Vitæ Sanctorum regni Sveo-gothici, emend. et illustr. Er. Benzelius filius, Upsaliæ, 1708, p. 59. (Köhler.)
[240] b. Man begegnet auf alten Holzschnitten einer Abbildung von Christi Geburt, welche durch die dabei stehenden Thiere erklärt werden soll. Der Hahn auf der Stange krähet da: Christus natus est! der Ochse brüllt mit überschnappender Stimme drein: Ubi? und das Lammlein bläheret die Antwort: Bethlehem! Rochholz, Alemannisches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel aus der Schweiz, p. 69 f. (Köhler.)
[241] a. Wer sind die ersten Vorbothen Gottes? Der Hahn, weil er kräht, "Christ ist geboren." Der Tauber, weil er ruft, "Wo?" Und der Ziegenbock, weil er schreit, "Z' Bethlehem." Pater Amand Baumgarten, Aus der volksmässigen Ueberlieferung der Heimat, I, Zur volksthümlichen Naturkunde, p. 94. (Köhler.)
Hahn: Kikeriki! Gott der Herr lebt!