Swedish G:

The woman is said to have taken the lives of her three children in Danish A, B, C, and of two in Swedish C, D, F, I, J, K (B also, where there are but two in all), a trait probably borrowed from 'The Cruel Mother.'

The seven years' penance of the Scandinavian ballads is multiplied three times in English A, and four times in B and in those versions of 'The Cruel Mother' which have been affected by the present ballad (20, I, J, K; L is defective). What is more important, the penance in the English ballads is completely different in kind, consisting not in exaggerated austerities, but partly, at least, in transmigration or metensomatosis: seven years to be a fish, 20, I, J, K; seven years a bird, 20, I, J, K; seven years a stone, 21, A, B; seven years an eel, 20, J; seven years a bell, or bell-clapper, 20, I, 21, A (to ring a bell, 20, K, L). Seven years in hell seems to have been part of the penance or penalty in every case: seven years a porter in hell, 21, B, 20, I, K; seven years down in hell, 20, J; seven years to "ring the bell and see sic sights as ye darna tell, 20, L;" "other seven to lead an ape in hell," A, a burlesque variation of the portership.

The Finnish Mataleena, going to the well for water, sees the reflection of her face, and bewails her lost charms. Jesus begs a drink: she says she has no can, no glass. He bids her confess. "Where are your three boys? One you threw into the fire, one into the water, and one you buried in the wilderness." She fills a pail with her tears, washes his feet, and wipes them with her hair: then asks for penance. "Put me, Lord Jesus, where you will. Make me a ladder-bridge over the sea, a brand in the fire, a coal in the furnace."

There are several Slavic ballads which blend the story of the Samaritan woman and that of 'The Cruel Mother,' without admixture of the Magdalen. Wendish A, 'Aria' (M-aria?), Haupt and Schmaler, I, 287, No 290, has a maid Who goes for water on Sunday morning, and is joined by an old man who asks for a drink. She says the water is not clean; it is dusty and covered with leaves. He says, The water is clean, but you are unclean. She demands proof, and he bids her go to church in her maiden wreath. This she does. The grass withers before her, a track of blood follows her, and in the churchyard there come to her nine headless boys, who say, Nine sons hast thou killed, chopt off their heads, and meanest to do the same for a tenth. She entreats their forgiveness, enters the church, sprinkles herself with holy water, kneels at the altar and crosses herself, then suddenly sinks into the ground, so that nothing is to be seen but her yellow hair. B, 'Die Kindesmörderin,' ib., II, 149, No 197, begins like A. As the maid proceeds to the church, nine graves open before her, and nine souls follow her into the church. The oldest of her children springs upon her and breaks her neck, saying, "Mother, here is thy reward. Nine of us didst thou kill."

There are two Moravian ballads of the same tenor: A, Deutsches Museum, 1855, I, 282, translated by M. Klapp: B, communicated to the Zeitschrift des böhmischen Museums, 1842, p. 401, by A.W. Šembera, as sung by the "mährisch sprechenden Slawen" in Prussian Silesia; the first seven stanzas translated in Haupt u. Schmaler, II, 314, note to No 197. The Lord God goes out one Sunday morning, and meets a maid, whom he asks for water. She says the water is not clean. He replies that it is cleaner than she; for (A) she has seduced fifteen men and had children with all of them, has filled hell with the men and the sea with the children. He sends her to church; but, as she enters the church-yard, the bells begin to ring (of themselves), and when she enters the church, all the images turn their backs. As she falls on her knees, she is changed into a pillar of salt.

The popular ballads of some of the southern nations give us the legend of the Magdalen without mixture.

French. A, Poésies populaires de la France, I (not paged), from Sermoyer, Ain, thirty lines, made stanzas by repetition. Mary goes from door to door seeking Jesus. He asks what she wants: she answers, To be shriven. Her sins have been such, she says, that the earth ought not to bear her up, the trees that see her can but tremble. For penance she is to stay seven years in the woods of Baume, eat the roots of the trees, drink the dew, and sleep under a juniper. Jesus comes to inquire about her when this space has expired. She says she is well, but her hands, once white as flower-de-luce, are now black as leather. For this Jesus requires her to stay seven years longer, and then, being thoroughly cured of her old vanities, she is told,

B is nearly the same legend in Provençal: Damase Arbaud, I, 64. The penance is seven years in a cave, at the end of which Jesus passes, and asks Mary what she has had to eat and drink. "Wild roots, and not always them; muddy water, and not always that." The conclusion is peculiar. Mary expresses a wish to wash her hands. Jesus pricks the rock, and water gushes out. She bewails the lost beauty of her hands, and is remanded to the cavern for another seven years. Upon her exclaiming at the hardship, Jesus tells her that Martha shall come to console her, the wood-dove fetch her food, the birds drink. But Mary is not reconciled:

C, Poésies populaires de la Gascogne, Bladé, 1881, p. 339; 'La pauvre Madeleine,' seventeen stanzas of four short lines, resembles B till the close. When Jesus comes back after the second penance, and Mary says, as she had before, that she has lived like the beasts, only she has lacked water, Jesus again causes water to spring from the rock. But Mary says, I want no water. I should have to go back to the cave for another seven years. She is conducted straightway to paradise.

D, Bladé, as before, p. 183, 'Marie-Madeleine,' six stanzas of five short lines. Mary is sent to the mountains for seven years' penance; at the end of that time washes her hands in a brook, and is guilty of admiring them; is sent back to the mountains for seven years, and is then taken to heaven.

A Catalan ballad combines the legend of the Magdalen's penance with that of her conversion: Milá, Observaciones, p. 128, No 27, 'Santa Magdalena,' and Briz y Saltó, Cansons de la Terra, II, 99. Martha, returning from church, asks Magdalen, who is combing her hair with a gold comb, if she has been at mass. Magdalen says no, nor had she thought of going. Martha advises her to go, for she certainly will fall in love with the preacher, a young man; pity that he ever was a friar. Magdalen attires herself with the utmost splendor, and, to hear the sermon better, takes a place immediately under the pulpit. The first word of the sermon touched her; at the middle she fainted. She stripped off all her ornaments, and laid them at the preacher's feet. At the door of the church she inquired of a penitent where Jesus was to be found. She sought him out at the house of Simon, washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, picked up from the floor the bones which he had thrown away. Jesus at last noticed her, and asked what she wished. She wished to confess. He imposed the penance of seven years on a mountain, "eating herbs and fennels, eating bitter herbs." Magdalen turned homewards after the seven years, and found on the way a spring, where she washed her hands, with a sigh over their disfigurement. She heard a voice that said, Magdalen, thou hast sinned. She asked for new penance, and was sent back to the mountain for seven years more. At the end of this second term she died, and was borne to the skies with every honor from the Virgin, saints, and angels.

Danish A is translated by Prior, II, 25, No 44: Swedish C by William and Mary Howitt, Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, I, 282.

A.

B.

A.

B.

22
ST STEPHEN AND HEROD

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:

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:

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):

or,

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:

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!"

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,

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."