9_The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)

'Three were buryed vnder thy bed's head,

Other three vnder thy brewing leade.

'Other three on yon play greene;

Count, maid, and there be 9.'

'But I hope you are the good old man

That all the world beleeues vpon.

'Old palmer, I pray thee,

Pennaunce _tha_t thou wilt giue to me.'

'Penance I can giue thee none,

But 7 yeere to be a stepping-stone.

'Other seaven a clapper in a bell,

Other 7 to lead an ape in hell.

'When thou hast thy penance done,

Then thoust come a mayden home.'

A Ballad Book, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, edited by

David Laing, p. 157 f, VII; from Sir W. Scott's

recollection.

'Seven years ye shall be a stone,

. . . . . . .

For many a poor palmer to rest him upon.

And you the fair maiden of Gowden-gane

'Seven years ye'll be porter of hell,

And then I'll take you to mysell.'

* * * * * * *

'Weel may I be a' the other three,

But porter of hell I never will be.'

And I, etc.

* * * * *

#A.#

2^1. White shee washee & white.

2^2. White.

9^1. They were.

10^1. on won.

10^2. maids

#B.#

_Note by Scott_: "There is or was a curious song with this

burthen to the verse,

'And I the fair maiden of Gowden-gane.'

Said maiden is, I think, courted by the devil in human

shape, but I only recollect imperfectly the concluding

stanzas [1, 2]:

'Seven years ye shall be a stone,'

(here a chorus line which I have forgot), etc. The lady

answers, in allusion to a former word which I have

forgotten,

"Weel may I be [etc., st. 3]."

[182] The Magdalen's food is to be dry apple in Danish #B# 9.

[183] Swedish #F#:

'And tell me how has it been with thy meat?'

'O I have eaten of almonds sweet.'

'And tell me how it has been with thy drink?'

'I have drunk both mead and wine, I think.'

'And tell me how was that bed of thine?'

'Oh I have rested on ermeline.'

Norwegian #G#:

'I have fed as well on herbage wild

As others have fed on roast and broiled.

'I have rested as well on the hard, hard stone

As others have rested on beds of down.

'I have drunk as well from the rippling rill

As others that drank both wine and ale.'

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:

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.'

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.'

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.

King Herod bade saddle his courser gray,

He listed to ride to Bethlem;

Fain would he slay the little child

That to cope with him pretended.

Mary took the child in her arms,

And Joseph the ass took also,

So they traversed the Jewish land,

To Egypt, as God them guided.

The little children whose blood was shed,

They were full fourteen thousand,

But Jesus was thirty miles away

Before the sun was setting.

#B.# A broadside of fourteen four-line stanzas, in two copies, #a# of

the middle, #b# from the latter part, of the last century. #b# was

printed "in the Dansk Kirketidende for 1862, No 43," by Professor George

Stephens: #a# is given by Grundtvig, III, 881. The first three stanzas

correspond to #A# 1-5, the next three to #A# 6-8: the visit of the Wise

Men to Herod is then intercalated, 7-10, and the story concludes as in

#A# 9-11.

#C.# 'Sankt Steffan,' Kristensen, II, 123, No 36, from recitation about

1870, eight four-line stanzas, 1-3 agreeing with #A# 3-6, 4-6 with #A#

6-9, 7, 8 with #A# 9, 11. The verbal resemblance with the copy sung by

the old beggar-woman more than a hundred and thirty years before is

often close.

A #Färöe# version, 'Rudisar vísa,' was communicated to the Dansk

Kirketidende for 1852, p. 293, by Hammershaimb, twenty-six two-line

stanzas (Grundtvig, II, 519). Stephen is in Herod's service. He goes out

and sees the star in the east, whereby he knows that the Saviour of the

world, "the great king," is born. He comes in and makes this

announcement. Herod orders his eyes to be put out: so, he says, it will

appear whether this "king" will help him. They put out Stephen's eyes,

but now he sees as well by night as before by day. At this moment a

cock, roast and carved, is put on the board before Herod, who cries out:

'If this cock would stand up and crow,

Then in Stephen's tale should I trow.'

Herod he stood, and Herod did wait,

The cock came together that lay in the plate.

The cock flew up on the red gold chair,

He clapped his wings, and he crew so fair.

Herod orders his horse and rides to Bethlehem, to find the new-born

king. As he comes in, Mary greets him, and tells him there is still mead

and wine. He answers that she need not be so mild with him: he will have

her son and nail him on the cross. "Then you must go to heaven for him,"

says Mary. Herod makes an attempt on Jesus, but is seized by twelve

angels and thrown into the Jordan, where the Evil One takes charge of

him.

#Swedish.# A single stanza, corresponding to Danish #A# 6, #B# 4, #C# 4,

is preserved in a carol, 'Staffans Visa,' which was wont to be sung all

over Sweden on St Stephen's day, in the Christmas sport, not yet given

up, called Staffansskede; which consisted in young fellows riding about

from house to house early in the morning of the second day of Yule, and

levying refreshments.[185] One of the party carried at the end of a pole

a lighted lantern, made of hoops and oiled paper, which was sometimes in

the shape of a six-cornered star. Much of the chant was improvised, and

both the good wishes and the suggestions as to the expected treat would

naturally be suited to particular cases; but the first stanza, with but

slight variations, was (Afzelius, III, 208, 210):

Stephen was a stable-groom,

We thank you now so kindly!

He watered the five foals all and some,

Ere the morning star was shining.

No daylight's to be seen,

The stars in the sky

Are gleaming.

or,

Stephen was a stable-groom,

Bear thee well my foal!

He watered the five foals all and some,

God help us and Saint Stephen!

The sun is not a-shining,

But the stars in the sky

Are gleaming.

There is also a Swedish ballad which has the substance of the story of

Danish #A# 6-8, but without any allusion to Stephen. It occurs as a

broadside, in two copies, dated 1848, 1851, and was communicated by

Professor Stephens to the Dansk Kirketidende, 1861, Nos 3, 4, and is

reprinted by Grundtvig, III, 882 f, and in Bergström's Afzelius, II, 360

f. There are eleven four-line stanzas, of which the last six relate how

Mary was saved from Herod by the miracle of the Sower (see 'The Carnal

and the Crane,' stanzas 18-28). The first five cover the matter of our

ballad. The first runs:

In Bethlem of Judah a star there rose,

At the time of the birth of Christ Jesus:

'Now a child is born into the world

That shall suffer for us death and torment.'

Herod then calls his court and council, and says to them, as he says to

Stephen in the Danish ballad, "I cannot believe your story unless the

cock on this table claps his wings and crows." This comes to pass, and

Herod exclaims that he can never thrive till he has made that child feel

the effects of his wrath. He then steeps his hands in the blood of the

Innocents, and falls off his throne in a marvellous swoon. Mary is

warned to fly to Egypt. It is altogether likely that the person who

speaks in the first stanza was originally the same as the one who says

nearly the same thing in the three Danish ballads, that is, Stephen, and

altogether unlikely that Herod's words, which are addressed to Stephen

in the Danish ballads, were addressed to his court and council rather

than to Stephen here.

#Norwegian.# Two stanzas, much corrupted, of what may have been a ballad

like the foregoing, have been recovered by Professor Bugge, and are

given by Grundtvig, III, 883.

St Stephen's appearance as a stable-groom, expressly in the Swedish

carol and by implication in the Danish ballads, is to be explained by

his being the patron of horses among the northern nations.[186] On his

day, December 26, which is even called in Germany the great Horse Day,

it was the custom for horses to be let blood to keep them well during

the year following, or raced to protect them from witches. In Sweden

they were watered "ad alienos fontes" (which, perhaps, is what Stephen

is engaged in in the carol), and treated to the ale which had been left

in the cups on St Stephen's eve; etc., etc.[187] This way of observing

St Stephen's day is presumed to be confined to the north of Europe, or

at least to be derived from that quarter. Other saints are patrons of

horses in the south, as St Eloi, St Antony, and we must seek the

explanation of St Stephen's having that office in Scandinavia, Germany,

and England in the earlier history of these regions. It was suggested as

long ago as the middle of the sixteenth century by the Archbishop Olaus

Magnus, that the horseracing, which was universal in Sweden on December

26, was a remnant of heathen customs. The horse was sacred to Frey, and

Yule was Frey's festival. There can hardly be a doubt that the customs

connected with St Stephen's day are a continuation, under Christian

auspices, of old rites and habits which, as in so many other cases, the

church found it easier to consecrate than to abolish.[188]

The miracle of the cock is met with in other ballads, which, for the

most part, relate the wide-spread legend of the Pilgrims of St James.

#French.# In three versions, Chants de Pauvres en Forez et en Velay,

collected by M. Victor Smith, Romania, II, 473 ff. Three pilgrims,

father, mother, and son, on their way to St James, stop at an inn, at St

Dominic. A maid-servant, enamored of the youth (qui ressemble une image,

que semblavo-z-un ange) is repelled by him, and in revenge puts a silver

cup [cups] belonging to the house into his knapsack. The party is

pursued and brought back, and the young pilgrim is hanged. He exhorts

his father to accomplish his vow, and to come that way when he returns.

When the father returns, after three [six] months, the boy is found to

be alive; his feet have been supported, and he has been nourished, by

God and the saints. The father tells the judge that his son is alive;

the judge replies, I will believe that when this roast fowl crows. The

bird crows: #A#, le poulet se mit a chanter sur la table; #B#, le poulet

vole au ciel, trois fois n'a battu l'aile; #C#, trois fois il a chanté,

trois fois l'a battu l'aile. The boy is taken down and the maid hanged.

#Spanish.# #A#, Milá, Observaciones sobre la Poesia Popular, p. 106, No

7, 'El Romero;' #B#, Briz, Cansons de la Terra, I, 71, 'S. Jaume de

Galicia,' two copies essentially agreeing. The course of the story is

nearly as in the French. The son does not ask his father to come back.

It is a touch of nature that the mother cannot be prevented from going

back by all that her husband can say. The boy is more than well. St

James has been sustaining his feet, the Virgin his head. He directs his

mother to go to the alcalde (Milá), who will be dining on a cock and a

hen, and to request him politely to release her son, who is still alive.

The alcalde replies: "Off with you! Your son is as much alive as this

cock and hen." The cock began to crow, the hen laid an egg in the dish!

#Dutch.# 'Een liedeken van sint Jacob,' Antwerpener Liederbuch, 1544, No

20, Hoffmann, p. 26; Uhland, p. 803, No 303; Willems, p. 318, No 133.

The pilgrims here are only father and son. The host's daughter avows her

love to her father, and desires to detain the young pilgrim. The older

pilgrim, hearing of this, says, My son with me and I with him. We will

seek St James, as pilgrims good and true. The girl puts the cup in the

father's sack. The son offers himself in his father's place, and is

hanged. The father finds that St James and the Virgin have not been

unmindful of the pious, and tells the host that his son is alive. The

host, in a rage, exclaims, "That's as true as that these roast fowls

shall fly out at the door!"

But ere the host could utter the words,

One by one from the spit brake the birds,

And into the street went flitting;

They flew on the roof of St Dominic's house,

Where all the brothers were sitting.

The brothers resolve unanimously to go to the judicial authority in

procession; the innocent youth is taken down, the host hanged, and his

daughter buried alive.

#Wendish.# Haupt und Schmaler, I, 285, No 289, 'Der gehenkte

Schenkwirth.' There are two pilgrims, father and son. The host himself

puts his gold key into the boy's basket. The boy is hanged: the father

bids him hang a year and a day, till he returns. The Virgin has put a

stool under the boy's feet, and the angels have fed him. The father

announces to the host that his son is living. The host will not believe

this till three dry staves which he has in the house shall put out green

shoots. This comes to pass. The host will not believe till three fowls

that are roasting shall recover their feathers and fly out of the

window. This also comes to pass. The host is hanged.

A #Breton# ballad, 'Marguerite Laurent,' Luzel, I, #A#, p. 211, #B#, p.

215, inverts a principal circumstance in the story of the pilgrims: a

maid is hanged on a false accusation of having stolen a piece of plate.

This may be an independent tradition or a corrupt form of the other.

Marguerite has, by the grace of St Anne and of the Virgin, suffered no

harm. A young clerk, her lover, having ascertained this, reports the

case to the seneschal, who will not believe till the roasted capon on

the dish crows. The capon crows. Marguerite goes on her bare knees to St

Anne and to Notre-Dame du Folgoat, and dies in the church of the latter

(first version).

'Notre-Dame du Folgoat,' Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, p. 272, No 38, 6th

ed., is of a different tenor. Marie Fanchonik, wrongly condemned to be

executed for child murder, though hanged, does not die. The executioner

reports to the seneschal. "Burn her," says the seneschal. "Though in

fire up to her breast," says the executioner, "she is laughing

heartily." "Sooner shall this capon crow than I will believe you." The

capon crows: a roast capon on the dish, all eaten but the feet.

Religious writers of the 13th century have their version of the story of

the pilgrims, but without the prodigy of the cock. Vincent of Beauvais,

Speculum Historiale, 1. 26, c. 33, who bases his narrative on a

collection of the miracles of St James incorrectly attributed to Pope

Callixtus II,[189] has but two pilgrims, Germans, father and son. On

their way to Compostella they pass a night in an inn at Toulouse. The

host, having an eye to the forfeiture of their effects, makes them drunk

and hides a silver cup in their wallet. Son wishes to die for father,

and father for son. The son is hanged, and St James interposes to

preserve his life.[190] With Vincent agree the author of the Golden

Legend, following Callixtus, Graesse, 2d ed., p. 426, c. 99 (94), §

5,[191] and Cæsarius Heisterbacensis, Dialogus Miraculorum, c. 58, II,

130, ed. Strange, who, however, does not profess to remember every

particular, and omits to specify Toulouse as the place. Nicolas

Bertrand, who published in 1515 a history of Toulouse, places the

miracle there.[192] He has three pilgrims, like the French and Spanish

ballads, and the roast fowl flying from the spit to convince a doubting

official, like the Dutch and Wendish ballads.

But, much earlier than the last date, this miracle of St James had

become connected with the town of San Domingo de la Calzada, one of the

stations on the way to Compostella,[193] some hours east of Burgos.

Roig, the Valencian poet, on arriving there in the course of his

pilgrimage, tells the tale briefly, with two roasted fowls, cock and

hen: Lo Libre de les Dones e de Conçells, 1460, as printed by Briz from

the edition of 1735, p. 42, Book 2, vv. 135-183. Lucio Marineo, whose

work, De las cosas memorables de España, appeared in 1530, had been at

San Domingo, and is able to make some addition to the miracle of the

cock. Up to the revivification, his account agrees very well with the

Spanish ballad. A roast cock and hen are lying before the mayor, and

when he expresses his incredulity, they jump from the dish on to the

table, in feathers whiter than snow. After the pilgrims had set out a

second time on their way to Compostella, to return thanks to St James,

the mayor returned to his house with the priests and all the people, and

took the cock and hen to the church, where they lived seven years, and

then died, leaving behind them a pair of the same snowy whiteness, who

in turn, after seven years, left their successors, and so on to

Marineo's day; and though of the infinite number of pilgrims who

resorted to the tomb each took away a feather, the plumage was always

full, and Marineo speaks as an eye-witness. (Edition of 1539, fol.

xliii.) Dr Andrew Borde gives nearly the same account as Marineo, in the

First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge, 1544, p. 202 ff, ed.

Furnivall.[194]

Early in the sixteenth century the subject was treated in at least two

miracle-plays, for which it is very well adapted: Un miracolo di tre

Pellegrini, printed at Florence early in the sixteenth century,

D'Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni, III, 465; Ludus Sancti Jacobi,

fragment de mystère provençale, Camille Arnaud, 1858.[195]

Nicolas Bertrand, before referred to, speaks of the miracle as depicted

in churches and chapels of St James. It was, for example, painted by

Pietro Antonio of Foligno, in the fifteenth century, in SS. Antonio e

Jacopo at Assisi, and by Pisanello in the old church of the Tempio at

Florence, and, in the next century, by Palmezzano in S. Biagio di S.

Girolamo at Forlì, and by Lo Spagna in a small chapel or tribune

dedicated to St James, about four miles from Spoleto, on the way to

Foligno. The same legend is painted on one of the lower windows of St

Ouen, and again on a window of St Vincent, at Rouen. Many more cases

might, no doubt, be easily collected.[196]

It is not at all surprising that a miracle performed at San Domingo de

la Calzada should, in the course of time, be at that place attributed to

the patron of the locality; and we actually find Luis de la Vega, in a

life of this San Domingo published at Burgos in 1606, repeating

Marineo's story, very nearly, with a substitution of Dominic for

James.[197] More than this, this author claims for this saint, who,

saving reverence, is decidedly _minorum gentium_, the merit and glory of

delivering a captive from the Moors, wherein he, or tradition, makes

free again with St James's rightful honors. The Moor, when told that the

captive will some day be missing, rejoins, If you keep him as close as

when I last saw him, he will as soon escape as this roast cock will fly

and crow. It is obvious that this anecdote is a simple jumble of two

miracles of St James, the freeing of the captives, recounted in Acta

Sanctorum, VI Julii, p. 47, § 190f, and the saving the life of the young

pilgrim.[198]

The restoration of a roasted fowl to life is also narrated in Acta

Sanctorum, I Septembris, p. 529, § 289, as occurring early in the

eleventh century (the date assigned to the story of the pilgrims), at

the table of St Stephen, the first king of Hungary. St Gunther was

sitting with the king while he was dining. The king pressed Gunther to

partake of a roast peacock, but Gunther, as he was bound by his rule to

do, declined. The king then ordered him to eat. Gunther bent his head

and implored the divine mercy; the bird flew up from the dish; the king

no longer persisted. The author of the article, without questioning the

reality of the miracle, well remarks that there seems to be something

wrong in the story, since it is impossible that the holy king should

have commanded the saint to break his vow.

But the prime circumstances in the legend, the resuscitation of the

cock, does not belong in the eleventh century, where Vincent and others

have put it, but in the first, where it is put by the English and

Scandinavian ballads. A French romance somewhat older than Vincent,

Ogier le Danois, agrees with the later English ballad in making the

occasion to be the visit of the Wise Men to Herod. Herod will not

believe what they say,

'Se cis capon que ci m'est en présant

N'en est plumeus com il estoit devant,

Et se redrece à la perche en cantant.'

vv 11621-23.

And what he exacts is performed for his conviction.[199] Nevertheless,

as we shall now see, the true epoch of the event is not the Nativity,

but the Passion.

The ultimate source of the miracle of the reanimated cock is an

interpolation in two late Greek manuscripts of the so-called Gospel of

Nicodemus: Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, p. cxxix f;

Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, p. 269, note 3. After Judas had tried

to induce the Jews to take back the thirty pieces, he went to his house

to hang himself, and found his wife sitting there, and a cock roasting

on a spit before the coals. He said to his wife, Get me a rope, for I

mean to hang myself, as I deserve. His wife said to him, Why do you say

such things? And Judas said to her, Know in truth that I have betrayed

my master Jesus to evil-doers, who will put him to death. But he will

rise on the third day, and woe to us. His wife said, Do not talk so nor

believe it; for this cock that is roasting before the coals will as soon

crow as Jesus rise again as you say. And even while she was speaking the

words, the cock flapped his wings and crew thrice. Then Judas was still

more persuaded, and straightway made a noose of the rope and hanged

himself.[200]

The Cursor Mundi gives its own turn to this relation, with the intent to

blacken Judas a little more.[201] When Judas had betrayed Jesus, he went

to his mother with his pence, boasting of the act. "Hast thou sold thy

master?" said she. "Shame shall be thy lot, for they will put him to

death; but he shall rise again." "Rise, mother?" said Judas, "sooner

shall this cock rise up that was scalded yesternight."

Hardly had he said the word,

The cock leapt up and flew,

Feathered fairer than before,

And by God's grace he crew;

The traitor false began to fear,

His peril well he knew.

This cock it was the self-same cock

Which Peter made to rue,

When he had thrice denied his lord

And proved to him untrue.

A still different version existed among the Copts, who had their copies

of the apocryphal writings, and among them the gospel of Nicodemus.

The Copts say, according to Thévenot, "that on the day of the Supper a

roasted cock was served to our Lord, and that when Judas went out to

sell Jesus to the Jews, the Saviour commanded the cock to get up and

follow him; which the cock did, and brought back his report to our Lord

that Judas had sold him, for which service this cock shall be admitted

to paradise."[202]

The herald of the morn is described in other carols as making known the

birth of the Saviour to the animal creation, or the more familiar

members of it.