"St. Stephen and Herod" is
Child ballad 22 and a
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French ori ...
.
It depicts the
martyrdom
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
of
Saint Stephen
Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...
as occurring, with wild
anachronism, under
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...
, 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
The Star of Bethlehem, or Christmas Star, appears in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 where "wise men from the East" (Magi) are inspired by the star to travel to Jerusalem. There, they meet King Herod of Judea, and ask hi ...
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 as the heroes, appears in Child ballad 55, "
The Carnal and the Crane".
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.
See also
*
List of Child Ballads
The Child Ballads is the colloquial name given to a collection of 305 ballads collected in the 19th century by Francis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, ...
References
External links
''St. Stephen and Herod'' modern English
with notes
Child Ballads
Christmas carols
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