Recordings & Info 22. St. Stephen and Herod
CONTENTS
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America (Coffin)
6) Wiki
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number 3963: St. Stephen and Herod (11 Listings)
Alternative Titles
St. Stephen and King Herod
A Carol for Saint Stephen's Day
Traditional Ballad Index: Saint Stephen and Herod [Child 22]
DESCRIPTION: Stephen sees the star of Bethlehem, and tells his master King Herod that he can no longer serve him because he must serve the better child in Bedlam. Herod says that the roasted cock will sooner crow. It does crow, and Herod has Stephen stoned.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1856, from ms of c. 1430 ( (British Museum -- Sloane MS. 2593)
KEYWORDS: religious bird execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
4 B.C.E. - Death of Herod the Great
(not before) 30 C.E. - Death of Stephen
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Child 22, "St Stephen and Herod" (1 text)
Bronson 22, "St Stephen and Herod" (1 version)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 217-218, "St. Stephen and Herod" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's (#1)}
Flanders-Ancient1, pp. 239-241, "St. Stephen and Herod" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's (#1)}
Leach, pp. 107-108, "St. Stephen and Herod" (1 text)
OBB 98, "St. Stephen and King Herod" (1 text)
PBB 1, "Saint Stephen and Herod" (1 text)
Gummere, pp. 295-296+362, "St. Stephen and Herod" (1 text)
DT 22, STPHEROD*
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #255, "A Carol for Saint Stephen's Day" (1 text)
Roud #3963
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Roasted Cock" (plot)
cf. "The Wife of Usher's Well" (plot)
NOTES: For the stoning of Stephen (c. 30-31 C.E.) see Acts 7:54-8:2 (note that Herod had been dead for more than thirty years when Stephen was killed!).
For the birth of Jesus in the time of Herod (probably 6 B.C.E) see Matt. 1:18-2:23, Luke 1:5f.
For the cruelty of Herod, see also Josephus, Antiquities (the end of Herod's life is the primary theme of Josephus's book XVII, detailing, e.g., the executions of several of Herod's sons and the mass slaughter he planned to follow his death).
For the vexed question of the origin of the legend of the roasted cock, see the notes to "The Carnal and the Crane" [Child 55].
The only recent find of this, and the only version with a tune, is the version Flanders collected from George Edwards; she speculates that his source (his grandfather) may have learned it from print. - RBW
Folk Index: St. Stephen and Herrod [Ch 22]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p107 [14??]
Child Collection Index
022 Boys of the Lough Sankt Staffan Han Rider/Christmas Day in the Morning/Trettondagsmarschen The Day Dawn [Midwinter Night's Dream] 1994 7:32 Yes
022 Boys of the Lough Sankt Staffan Han Rider + That Night in Bethlehem Midwinter Live 2007 3:26 Yes
022 Folk & Rackare Staffan Och Herodes Rackarspel 1978 4:06 Yes
022 Folk & Rackare Staffan Och Herodes Stjärnhästen 1981 3:30 Yes
022 George Edwards St. Stephen and King Herod The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
022 Gjallarhorn Staffan (Stephen) Rimfaxe (Rimemane) 2006 4:52 Yes
022 Jody Marhall Sankt Staffan Han Rider + Carol of the Bells Carol of the Bells 2006 No
022 Kathleen Danson Read St. Stephen and Herod Spoken Literature of Early English Ballads 1956 2:11 Yes
022 Sågskära Staffan Och Herodes Apelgrå 2000 3:49 Yes
022 Steeleye Span Stephen Bedlam Born 2000 4:27 Yes
022 Svea Jansson Steffan Och Herodes Den Medeltida Balladen (The Medieval Ballad) - Folk Songs in Sweden 1995 4:35 Yes
022 Svea Jansson Sankte Staffan En Sannerlig Man (Staffan Och Herodes) Lena, Ulrika and Svea - Three Traditional Folk Singers - Folk Music in Sweden, Vol. 9 & 10 1996 No
022 Uppsala Musikklasser Staffan Och Herodes (Staffan and Herod) Christmas in Sweden 2003 No
022 V.C. (Victor Clinton) Clinton-Baddeley St. Stephen and King Herod The Jupiter Book of Ballads 1962 2:22 Yes
Coffin- A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
22. SAINT STEPHEN AND HEROD
See the Vermont Historical Society, Proceedings, N.S., VII, 7398 [Refers to George Edwards version]
Saint Stephen and Herod: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"St. Stephen and Herod" is Child ballad 22 and a Christmas carol.[1] It depicts the martyrdom of Saint Stephen as occurring, with wild anachronism, under Herod the Great, and claims that that was the reason for St. Stephen's Day being the day after Christmas.
Synopsis
St. Stephen served Herod as a clerk. He saw the Star of Bethlehem and went to Herod to leave his service. Herod asks him what he lacks, and he affirms that no one lacks anything in his hall, but the child born in Bethlehem is better than that. Herod says it is as true as that the cock cooked for his supper would crow again. Immediately it does, and Herod had Stephen stoned to death.
Variants
This story, with the Wise Men featuring as the heroes, appears in Child ballad 55, "The Carnal and the Crane".[2]
The miraculous restoration of a rooster to life is a common motif in European ballads; it frequently appears in a tale in which an innocent person condemned to death is miraculously saved from death, and in which someone expresses disbelief in that miracle as it was unlikely as the rooster's resurrection.[3]
References
1.^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "St. Stephen and Herod"
2.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 233, Dover Publications, New York 1965
3.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 236, Dover Publications, New York 1965
External links Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Child's Ballads/22
St. Stephen and Herod, modern English
St. Stephen and Herod, with notes