Carol For St. Stephen's Day
See: Hymns to St Stephen
Words and Music: English Traditional
Compare: Seyt steuene was a clerk
Source: Joshua Sylvestre, Christmas Carols - Ancient and Modern (circa 1861, reprinted A. Wessels Company, New York, 1901)
1. Saint Stephen was a clerk
In king Herodes hall,
And served him of bread and cloth
As ever king befalle.1
2. Stephen out of kitchen came
With boar's head in hande
He saw a star was fair and bright,
Over Bethlem stonde.
3. He cast adown the boar's head,
And went into the halle;
"I forsake thee, king Herod,
And thy werkes alle.
4. "I forsake thee, king Herod,
And thine werkes alle,
There is a child in Bethlem borne,
Is better than we alle."
5. "What aileth thee, Stephen,
What is thee befalle?
Lacketh thee either meat or drink,
In king Herod's hall?"
6. "Lacketh me neither meat nor drink
In king Herod's hall,
There is a child in Bethlem born,
Is better than we all."
7. "What aileth thee, Stephen,
Art thou wode,2 or thou ginnest to brede?3
Lacketh thee either gold or fee,
Or any rich weede?"4
8. "Lacketh me neither gold nor fee,
Nor none rich weede,
There is a child in Bethlem born
Shall help us at our need."
[9. "This is all so sooth [true], Stephen,
All so sooth, I wis [assuredly],
As this capon crow shall
That lyeth here in my dish.]5
10. That word was not so soon said,
That word in the hall,
The capon crew, Christus natus est,
Among the lordes all.
11. Riseth up my tormentors,6
By two, and all by one,
And leadeth Stephen out of town,
And stoneth him with stone.
12. Token they Stephen,
And stoned him in the way,
And therefore is his even,
On Christes owen day.
Notes from Sylvestre:
1. Befalle, i.e., happened; as well as ever happened to a king. Return
2. Wode, i.e., mad. Return
3. Brede, i.e., unbraid. Danish, bebreide. In Chaucer the line, --
"For veray wo out of his wit he braide," Return
4. Weede, i.e., dress. Return
5. This verse does not occur in Sylvestre, but does occur in Husk and Rickert. See below. Return
6. Executioners. (Note from Husk). Return
Sylvestre's Note:
"This carol is of the beginning of the fifteenth century. The legend itself dates back to a much more remote period. The story of the cock was originally applied to other saints, as St. James, St. Peter, or the Virgin. The oldest account, about 1200, is this: Two friends sat down to dinner in Bologna, and one bade the other carve the cock, which he did, so that, as he said, not St. Peter or our Lord himself could put it together again. The cock sprang up, clapped his wings and crowed, scattering the sauce over the two friends, and rendering them lepers till the day of their death. The same miracle is related as having occurred to prove the innocence of persons falsely accused, and is found in the legends of Spain, Brittany, Italy, and Sclavonian countries. How it came to be appropriated to St. Stephen does not appear. The boar's head, in which he brings in, was the established Yuletide disk of the North in old heathen times, as well as afterward.
"I am indebted for the above facts to Dr. Prior's delightful volumes of "Danish Ballads," recently published. That gentleman has given the very curious Danish version of the legend.
"In the carol entitled the 'Carnal and the Crane,' further on, this same legend appears in a more modern dress.
"Very nearly the original words of this old carol are given, as a specimen of the language of the period."
Note that Hugh Keyte, an editor of The New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) believes that "Joshua Sylvestre" is a pseudonym for a collaboration between William Sandys (1792-1874) and William Henry Husk (1814-1887). See Appendix 4.
William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868):
"This carol is contained in a manuscript in the British Museum of the period of Henry VI. Dr. Prior, in his excellent collection of Ancient Danish Ballads, has given a Danish version, in which Stephen is represented not as a clerk or sewer, but a stable boy. Of the legend, which is of much older date than the carol, Dr. Prior thus speaks: "The story of the cock was originally applied to other Saints, as St. James, St. Peter or the Virgin. The oldest account of it is in Vine. Bellovacensis, from an author who lived about 1200. Two friends sat down to dinner in Bologna, and one bade the other to carve the cock, which he did, so that, as he said, not St. Peter or our Lord Himself could put it together again. The cock sprang up, clapped his wings and crowed, scattering the sauce over the two friends, and rendering them lepers until the day of their death. The same miracle is related as having occurred to prove the innocence of persons falsely accused, and is found in the legends of Spain, Brittany, Italy, and Sclavonian countries. How it came to be appropriated to St. Stephen does not appear." The odd anachronism of making the martyrdom of Stephen occur under Herod will not escape the reader's observation."
Also found in Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), p. 123, with a date of Fifteenth Century. She adds the following note at pages 155-6:
"The central episode of this very quaint carol (cf. The Carnal and the Crane, p. 91, where the Magi bring the news) was related about 1200 by Vincent of Beauvais, who, however, tells it of two men at a dinner-table, one of whom, carving a fowl, said that he would do it so thoroughly that not Peter nor our Lord Himself could put it together again. Whereupon the cock was feathered and crowed, and both men became lepers.
"A similar idea is illustrated in a print at the head of a carol-sheet published in 1701. It shows the stable at Bethlehem, the animals being represented with Latin inscriptions coming from their mouths as follows: -- The cock: 'Christus natus est.' The raven: 'Quando?' The cow: 'Hac nocte.' The ox: 'Ubi?' The sheep: 'Bethlehem.'"
Also found in A. H. Bullen, A Christmas Garland (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885), p. 33, who states that this carol is from the "Sloane MS. 2593. The MS was printed in 1856 by Thomas Wright for the Warton Society." He further notes at page 253-4:
“We learn from Dr. Prior’s 'Ancient Danish Ballads' (I. 395) that the oldest account of the singular legend which is the subject of this carol 'is in Vinc. Bellovacensis, from an author who lived about 1200. Two friends sat down to dinner in Bologna, and one bade the other to carve the cock, which he did, so that, as he said, not St. Peter or our Lord himself could put it together again. The cock sprang up, clapped his wings and crowed, scattering the sauce over the two friends, and rendering them lepers till the day of their death. The same miracle is related as having occurred to prove the innocence of persons falsely accused, and is found in the legends of Spain Brittany, Italy, and Slavonian countries. How it came to be appropriated to St. Stephen does not appear.'”
Also found in Joseph Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads From The Reign of King Henry the Second To The Revolution. 1790. W. Carew Hazlitt, ed., Third Edition. London: Reeves And Turner, 1877. Repr. Detroit, MI: Singing Tree Press, 1968, pp. 121-23.
Ritson also notes that the source is the Sloane MS. No. 2593. In the fourth verse, Ritson gives the first line as "I forsak the, kyng 'Herowde,'" but notes that the manuscript gives "Herowdes." He provides no other notes. In general, Ritson gives older spellings than this version, more in line with the version given by Sandys. See: Seyt steuene was a clerk.
Note:
A similar miracle of reconstruction occurs in the legends of Saint Nicholas:
Three boys were returning home from school for the holidays and had stopped at an inn overnight. The innkeeper, thinking to profit from this, took the boys, killed them, cut up their bodies, and put the parts into pickling casks. The parents of the boys were worried and appealed to Saint Nicholas who searched the road until he came to the inn. When confronted by the Bishop, the innkeeper admitted his sin. With a wave of his sceptre, Nicholas caused the boys to be reassembled and resurrected from the casks.
Compare: King Pharaoh
