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.
"There is a sheet of carols headed thus: 'Christus natus est, Christ is born,' with a wood-cut ten inches high by eight and one half inches wide, representing the stable at Bethlehem; Christ in the crib, watched by the Virgin and Joseph; shepherds kneeling; angels attending; a man playing on the bagpipes; a woman with a basket of fruit on her head; a sheep bleating and an ox lowing on the ground; a raven croaking and a crow cawing on the hay-rack; a cock crowing above them; and angels singing in the sky. The animals have labels from their mouths, bearing Latin inscriptions. Down the side of the wood-cut is the following account and explanation: 'A religious man, inventing the conceits of both birds and beasts, drawn in the picture of our Saviour's birth, doth thus express them. The cock croweth Christus natus est, Christ is born. The raven asked Quando, When? The crow replied, Hac nocte, This night. The ox cryeth out, Ubi, ubi? Where, where? The sheep bleated out, Bethlehem, Bethlehem. A voice from heaven sounded, Gloria in excelsis, Glory be on high!'" London, 1701. Hone's Every-Day Book, I, col. 1600 f.
So in Vieux Noëls français, in Les Noëls Bressans, etc., par Philibert Le Duc, p. 145.
Joie des Bestes
à la nouvelle de la naissance du Sauveur.
And again, in Italian, Bolza, Canzoni popolari comasche, p. 654, No 30:
A little Greek ballad, 'The Taking of Constantinople,' only seven lines long, relates a miracle entirely like that of the cock, which was operated for the conviction of incredulity. A nun, frying fish, hears a voice from above, saying, Cease your frying, the city will fall into the hands of the Turks. "When the fish fly out of the pan alive," she says, "then shall the Turks take the city." The fish fly out of the pan alive, and the Turkish admiraud comes riding into the city. Zambelios, p. 600, No 2; Passow, p. 147, No 197. (Liebrecht, Volkskunde, p. 179.)
With Herod's questions and Stephen's answers in stanzas 5-8, we may compare a passage in some of the Greek ballads cited under No 17, p. 199.
Jeannaraki, p. 203, No 265:
Sakellarios, p. 37, No 13.
Tommaseo, III, 154; Passow, p. 330, No 449:
Tommaseo, III, 152; Zambelios, p. 678, No 103; Passow, No 448.
A Danish translation of the English ballad is printed in Dansk Kirketidende for 1852, p. 254 (Grundtvig). Danish A is translated by Dr Prior, I, 398.
Sloane MS., 2593, fol. 22 b, British Museum.
12, 51. be falle.
31. a doun.
32, 41. for sak.
52. There is room only for the h at the end of the line.
91. also ... also ... I wys.
92. dych.
102. a mong.
[184] Everriculum fermenti veteris, seu residuæ in Danico orbe cum paganismi tum papismi reliquiæ in apricum prolatæ. "Rogata anus num vera esse crederet quæ canebat, respondit: Me illa in dubium vocaturam averruncet Deus!" Grundtvig, II, 518.
[185] "Staffans-skede, lusus, vel, ut rectius dicam, licentia puerorum agrestium, qui in Festo S. Stephani, equis vecti per villas discurrunt, et cerevisiam in lagenis, ad hoc ipsum præparatis, mendicando ostiatim colligunt:" a dissertation, Upsala, 1734, cited by Bergström in his edition of Afzelius, II, 358, note 28. Skede is gallop, or run, Icelandic skeið (Bergström), Norwegian skeid, skjei. Many copies of the Staffansvisa have been collected: see Bergström's Afzelius, II, 356: and for a description of the custom as practised among Swedes in Finland, with links and lanterns, but no foals, Fagerlund, Anteckningar om Korpo och Houtskärs Socknar, p. 39 ff. Something very similar was known in Holstein: see Schütze, Holsteinsches Idioticon, III, 200, as quoted by Grundtvig, II, 521, note **. From Chambers' Book of Days, II, 763 f, it appears that a custom, called a Stephening, was still existing at the beginning of this century, of the inhabitants of the parish of Drayton Beauchamp, Bucks, paying a visit to the rector on December 26, and lightening his stores of all the bread, cheese and ale they wanted. Chambers, again, in his Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 168 f, gives a song closely resembling the Staffansvisa, which was sung before every house on New Year's eve, in Deerness, Orkney, with the same object of stimulating hospitality. Similar practices are known in the Scottish Highlands: see Campbell, Tales of the West Highlands, III, 19, and Chambers, at p. 167 of the Popular Rhymes.
[186] Stephen in all the ballads can be none other than the first martyr, though Ihre, and other Swedes since his day, choose, for their part, to understand a "Stephanum primum Helsingorum apostolum," who certainly did not see the star in the east. The peasantry in Helsingland, we are told, make their saints' day December 26, too, and their St Stephen is a great patron of horses. The misappropriation of the glories of the protomartyr is somewhat transparent.
[187] Grundtvig, whom I chiefly follow here, II, 521-24. In a note on page 521, supplemented at III, 883 e, Grundtvig has collected much interesting evidence of December 26 being the great Horse Day. J. W. Wolf, cited by Grundtvig, II, 524, had said previously: "Nichts im leben des ersten christlichen blutzeugen erinnert auch nur fern an pferde; trotzdem machte das volk ihn zum patron der pferde, und setzte ihn also an die stelle des Fro, dem im Norden, und nicht weniger bei uns, die pferde heilig waren." Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie, I, 124.
[188] Jean Baptiste Thiers, Traité des Superstitions, etc., 2d ed., Paris, 1697, as cited by Liebrecht, Gervasius von Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, p. 233, No 169, condemns the belief, "qu'il vaut bien mieux ...saigner des chevaux le jour de la fête de S. Estienne qu'à tout autre jour." This may be one of the practices which Thiers had learned of from his reading (see Liebrecht's preface, p. xvii f), but might also have migrated from the east or north into France. Superstitions, like new fashions, are always sure of a hospitable reception, even though they impose a servitude.
[189] From a copy of this collection the story is given in Acta Sanctorum, VI Julii, p. 50, § 202 ff.
[190] Vincent, as pointed out by Professor George Stephens, knew of the miracle of the cock, and tells it at l. 25, c. 64, on the authority of Pietro Damiani. Two Bolognese dining together, one of them carved a cock and dressed it with pepper and sauce. "Gossip," says the other, "you have 'fixed' that cock so that Peter himself could not put him on his legs again." "Peter? No, not Christ himself." At this the cock jumped up, in all his feathers, clapped his wings, crow, and threw the sauce all over the blasphemous pair, whereby they were smitten with leprosy.
[191] So, naturally, the Fornsvenskt Legendarium, I, 170, and the Catalan Recull de Eximplis e Miracles, etc., Barcelona, 1880, I, 298.
[192] Opus de Tholosanorum gestis, fol. 49 verso, according to Acta S., p. 46, of the volume last cited. Toulouse rivalled with Compostella in the possession of relics of St James, and was amply entitled to the honor of the miracle. Dr Andrew Borde, in his First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge, says that an ancient doctor of divinity at Compostella told him, "We have not one hair nor bone of St. James; for St James the More and St James the Less, St Bartholomew and St Philip, St Simon and Jude, St Bernard and St George, with divers other saints, Carolus Magnus brought them to Toulouse." Ed. Furnivall, p. 204 f. I do not know where the splenetic old divine got his information, but certainly from no source so trustworthy as the chronicle of Turpin. Besides other places in France, the body, or at least the head, of St James was claimed by churches in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. But the author of an old Itinerary of the Pilgrims to Compostella asserts that James the Greater is one of four saints who never changed his burial-place. See Victor Le Clerc in Hist. Litt. de la France, xxi, 283.
[193] See 'La grande Chanson des Pélerins de Saint-Jacques,' in Socard, Noëls et Cantiques, etc., p. 76, last stanza, p. 80, third stanza, p. 89, fifth stanza; the last == Romancero de Champagne, I, 165, stanza 5.
[194] Southey follows Marineo in his Christmas Tale of "The Pilgrim to Compostella."
[195] "Auch eine deutsche Jesuitenkomödie, Peregrinus Compostellanus, Innsbruck, 1624, behandelt diesen Stoff. F. Liebrecht, in Serapeum, 1864, S. 235."
[196] Vasari, V, 184, Milan, 1809; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, III, 124, II, 566 ff, ed. 1866; Mrs Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, I, 241, ed. 1857. Professor N. Høyen indicated to Grundtvig the picture of Pietro Antonio, and d'Ancona refers to Pisanello's.
[197] He denies the perpetual multiplication of the feathers, and adds that the very gallows on which the pilgrim was hanged is erected in the upper part of the church, where everybody can see it. It is diverting to find Grossenhain, in Saxony, claiming the miracle on the ground of a big cock in an altar picture in a chapel of St James: Grässe, Sagenschatz des Königreichs Sachsen, 2d ed., I, 80, No 82, from Chladenius, Materialien zu Grossenhayner Stadtchronik, I, 2, Pirna, 1788; in verse by Ziehnert, Volkssagen, p. 99, No 14, ed. 1851.
[198] For Luis de la Vega, see Acta Sanctorum, III Maii, p. 171 f, §§ 6, 7, 8, VI Julii, p. 46, § 187. The Spanish and the Dutch ballad give due glory to St James and the Virgin; French C to God and St James. The Wendish ballad can hardly be expected to celebrate St James, and refers the justification and saving of the boy to the Virgin and the saints. French A has St Michas; B, God and the Virgin.
Luis de la Vega, with what seems an excess of caution, says, p. 172, as above, § 8: appositique erant ad comedendum gallus et gallina, assati nescio an elixi. Of boiled fowl we have not heard so far. But we find in a song in Fletcher's play of 'The Spanish Curate,' this stanza:
Act III, Sc. 2; Dyce, viii, 436.
In Father Merolla's Voyage to Congo, 1682, a reference to which I owe to Liebrecht, there is a story of a stewed cock, which, on the whole, justifies Luis de la Vega's scruple. This must have been introduced into Africa by some missioner, and, when so introduced, the miracle must have had an object, which it had lost before the tale came to Father Merolla.
One of two parties at feud having marched upon the chief city of his antagonist, and found all the inhabitants fled, the soldiers fell to rifling the houses and killing all the living creatures they met, to satisfy their hunger. "Amongst the rest they found a cock of a larger size than ordinary, with a great ring of iron about one of his legs, which occasioned one of the wisest among them to cry out, Surely this cock must be bewitched, and it is not at all proper for us to meddle with. To which the rest answered, Be it what it will, we are resolved to eat it. For this end they immediately killed and tore it to pieces after the manner of the negroes, and afterwards put it into a pot to boil. When it was enough, they took it out into a platter, and two, according to the custom, having said grace, five of them sat down to it with great greediness. But before they had touched a bit, to their great wonder and amazement, the boiled pieces of the cock, though sodden, and near dissolved, began to move about and unite into the form they were in before, and, being so united, the restored cock immediately raised himself up, and jumped out of the platter upon the ground, where he walked about as well as when he was first taken. Afterwards he leaped upon an adjoining wall, where he became new feathered all of a sudden, and then took his flight to a tree hard by, where fixing himself, he, after three claps of his wings, made a most hideous noise, and then disappeared. Every one may easily imagine what a terrible fright the spectators were in at this sight, who, leaping with a thousand Ave Marias in their mouths from the place where this had happened, were contented to observe most of the particulars at a distance." It appears that the brother of one of the two contending parties was said to have had a very large cock, from whose crowing he took auguries, but whether this was the same as the one restored to life is not known. Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1704, I, 682, Pinkerton's Collection, XVI, 229.
[199] La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche, par Raimbert de Paris, Poëme du xii siècle, etc., II, 485, vv 11606-627.
[200] The gospel of Nicodemus was introduced into the French and the Italian romance of Perceforest, but unfortunately this "narratio ab inepto Græculo pessime interpolata" (Thilo) seems to be lacking.
[201] Cursor Mundi, a Northumbrian poem of the 14th century, in four versions, ed. by R. Morris, p. 912 f, vv 15961-998. This passage was kindly pointed out to me by Professor George Stephens.
[202] Rélation d'un Voyage fait au Levant par Monsieur De Thévenot, Paris, 1665, I, 502. Cited by Thilo, p. xxxvii, and by Victor Smith, Romania, II, 474, who adds: "Parmi les manuscrits rapportés d'Éthiopie par M. d'Abbadie, il se trouve un volume dont le titre a pour équivalent, Actes de la passion. Un chapitre de ce volume, intitulé Le livre du coq, développe la légende indiquée par Thévenot. Catalogue raisonné des manuscrits éthiopiens, appartenant à M. A. T. d'Abbadie, in 4o, imp. impériale, Paris, 1859."
[203] "Ce couplet se débite en imitant successivement le chant du coq, le mugissement du bœuf, le cri de la chèvre, le braiment de l'âne, et le beuglement du veau." Bolza makes a similar explanation with regard to the Italian colloquy.
MS. B. 14, 39, of the thirteenth century, library of Trinity College, Cambridge, as printed in Wright & Halliwell's Reliquiæ Antiquæ, I, 144.
This legend, which has not been heretofore recognized as a ballad, is, so far as is known, unique in several particulars. The common tradition gives Judas an extraordinary domestic history,[204] but does not endow him with a sister as perfidious as himself. Neither is his selling his Master for thirty pieces accounted for elsewhere as it is here, if it may be strictly said to be accounted for here.
A popular explanation, founded upon John xii, 3-6, and current for six centuries and more, is that Judas, bearing the bag, was accustomed to take tithes of all moneys that came into his hands, and that he considered he had lost thirty pence on the precious ointment which had not been sold for three hundred pence, and took this way of indemnifying himself.
A Wendish ballad, Haupt und Schmaler, I, 276, No 284, has the following story. Jesus besought hospitality for himself and his disciples of a poor widow. She could give a lodging, but had no bread. Jesus said he would care for that, and asked which of his disciples would go and buy bread for thirty pieces of silver. Judas offered himself eagerly, and went to the Jews' street to do his errand. Jews were gaming, under a tub, and they challenged Judas to play. The first time he won the stake, and the second. The third time he lost everything. "Why so sad, Judas?" they say: "go sell your Master for thirty pieces." We are to suppose Judas to have rejoined his company. Jesus then asks who has sold him. John says, Is it I? and Peter, and then Judas, to whom Jesus replies, Thou knowest best. Judas, in remorse, runs to hang himself. The Lord bids him turn, for his sin is forgiven. But Judas keeps on till he comes to a fir: "Soft wood, thou fir, thou wilt not bear me." Further on, till he comes to an aspen. "Hard wood, thou aspen, thou wilt bear me." So he hanged himself on the aspen; and still the aspen shakes and trembles for fear of the judgment day.
According to the ballads, then, Judas lost the thirty pieces at play, or was robbed of them, with collusion of his sister. But his passionate behavior in the English ballad, st. 9, goes beyond all apparent occasion. Surely it was not for his tithe of the thirty pieces.
And why does he insist to Pilate on the very thirty pieces he had lost, rejecting every other form of payment? The ballad-singer might answer, So it was, and rest contented. Or perhaps he might have heard, and might tell us by way of comment, that these pieces had for long ages been destined to be "the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;" had been coined by Abraham's father for Ninus, and been given by Terah to his son; had passed through various hands to the Ishmaelites, had been paid by them as the price of Joseph, and been repaid to Joseph by his brethren for corn in Egypt; thence were transferred to Sheba, and in the course of events were brought by the Queen of the South as an offering to Solomon's temple; when the temple was despoiled by Nebuchadnezzar, were given by him to the king of Godolia, and after the kingdom of Godolia had been fused in that of Nubia, were brought as his tribute to the infant Jesus by Melchior, king of the same, etc.[205]
It is much to be regretted that the manuscript from which this piece was taken has been for some years lost from Trinity College Library, so that a collation of Wright's text has not been possible.
Not divided into stanzas in Reliquiæ Antiquæ.
32. meist.
101. heiste.
111. eiste.
112. bitaiste.
142. i-boust.
161. miste.
171. cnistes.
172. fiste.
In the absence of the original manuscript, I have thought it better to change Wright's s in the above instances (3-17) to h. In this substitution I follow Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, I, 114.
[204] Legenda Aurea, Grässe, 2d ed., p. 184 ff; Mone's Anzeiger, VII, col. 532 f, and du Méril, Poésies populaires latines du Moyen Age, p. 326 ff; Furnivall, Early English Poems and Lives of Saints, p. 107 ff; Douhet, Dictionnaire des Légendes, col. 714 ff; Das alte Passional, ed. K.A. Hahn, p. 312 ff; Bäckström, Svenska Folkböcker, II, 198 ff; etc.
[205] See Fabricius, Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, II, 79; Godfrey of Viterbo (who derives his information from a lost writing of the apostle Bartholomew) in his Pantheon, Pistorius, German. Script., ed. Struve, II, 243, or E. du Méril, Poésies pop. latines du Moyen Age, p. 321; Genesi de Scriptura, Biblioteca Catalana, p. 20, etc.
A. 'Bonnie Annie,' Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 123.
B. 'The High Banks o Yarrow,' Motherwell's MS., p. 652.
Had an old copy of this still pretty and touching, but much disordered, ballad been saved, we should perhaps have had a story like this. Bonnie Annie, having stolen her father's gold and her mother's fee, and fled with her paramour (like the maid in No 4), the ship in which she is sailing encounters a storm and cannot get on. Annie is seized with the pangs of travail, and deplores the absence of women (B 6, 7, A 9, 10; compare No 15, 21-26). The sailors say there is somebody on board who is marked for death, or flying from a just doom. They cast lots, and the lot falls on Annie,—a result which strikes us as having more semblance of the "corrupted currents of this world" than of a pure judgment of God. Annie, conscious only of her own guilt, asks to be thrown overboard. Her paramour offers great sums to the crew to save her, but their efforts prove useless, and Annie again begs, or they now insist, that she shall be cast into the sea with her babe. This done, the ship is able to sail on; Annie floats to shore and is buried there.
The captain of the ship is the guilty man in A, in B a rich squire. A may exhibit the original plot, but it is just as likely that the captain was substituted for a passenger, under the influence of another ballad, in which there is no Annie, but a ship-master stained with many crimes, whom the lot points out as endangering or obstructing the vessel. See 'Brown Robyn's Confession,' further on.
If the narrative in Jonah, i, is the ultimate source of this and similar stories, it must be owned that the tradition has maintained its principal traits in this ballad remarkably well. Jonah flies from the presence of the Lord in a ship; the ship is overtaken by a tempest;[206] the sailors cast lots to know who is the guilty cause, and the lot falls on Jonah; he bids the sailors take him up and cast him into the sea; nevertheless the men row hard to bring the ship to land, but cannot succeed; they throw Jonah into the water, and the storm ceases.[207]
Translated in Grundtvig's Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 199, No 31.
Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 123.
Motherwell's MS., p. 652. From the singing of a boy, Henry French, Ayr.
A.