“Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen …”
Did you know that December 26 is St. Stephen’s Day, the “Feast of Stephen” of the carol? Very likely you did. For me, a Jewish boy, such things were esoteric, almost forbidden lore. When I discovered them, I found them entirely fascinating.
It was my senior year in high school, “in the bleak midwinter” as the carol puts it, which that year seemed about as bleak as a winter could be. My mother had died some months before; all my UFOlogy had not managed to save her, as I’d been unconsciously hoping it would. On Saturdays I took the train into Philadelphia on Saturdays and hung out at the Free Library, poking through its quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. (Hat tip to “The Raven.”) And, in one such volume, came upon a medieval English ballad:
“Saint Stephen was a clerk
In King Herod’s hall,
And served him of bread and cloth
As every king befall.”
(Spelling modernized; language otherwise left intact.)
Now wait a minute, I thought. My acquaintance with the New Testament was spotty, but I knew it well enough to look up the story of Stephen in the Book of Acts (6:8-8:1), and it was as I thought: not a word about his having been in the employ of Herod or any other king.
“Stephen out of kitchen came
With boar’s head on hand,
He saw a star was fair and bright
Over Bethlehem stand.
“He case adown the boar’s head
And went into the hall:
‘I forsake thee, Herod,
And thy workes all.
“‘I forsake thee, King Herod,
And thy workes all,
There is a child in Bethlehem born
Is better than we all.'”
Naturally this announcement creates a stir.
“‘What aileth thee, Stephen?
What is thee befall?
Lacketh thee either meat or drink
In King Herod’s hall?’
“‘Lacketh me neither meat ne drink
In King Herod’s hall;
There is a child in Bethlehem born
Is better than we all.’
“‘What aileth thee, Stephen?
Art wode [mad] or ‘ginnest to brede [become so]?
Lacketh thee either gold or fee,
Or any rich weed [clothing]?’
“‘Lacketh me neither gold ne fee
Ne none rich weed;
There is a child in Bethlehem born
Shall helpen us in our need.'”
Yeah, right, says Herod. And the roast chicken in my plate is going to crow.
“‘That is all so sooth [true], Stephen,
All so sooth, I-wys [I know],
As this capon crowe shall
That li’th here in my dish.’
“That word was not so soon said,
That word in that hall,
The capon crew Christus natus est
Among the lordes all.”
You’d think–or, if you’re shrewder, maybe you wouldn’t think–that confronted with this clear proof they’re wrong, Herod and his crew would come around. Instead, they’re seized by murderous rage:
“‘Risit up, my tormentors,
By two and all by one,
And leadit Stephen out of this town,
And stonit him with stone.’
“Tooken they Stephen
And stoned him in the way;
And therefore is his even
On Christe’s own day.”
I was familiar with the idea that Christian storytellers, like their Jewish counterparts, could come up with all sorts of “Bible stories” found nowhere in Scripture. But this ballad went further: it flatly contradicted Scripture.
In the Book of Acts, Stephen is lynched by a Jewish mob (including the future apostle Paul) to whom he’s preached about their shared religious history, ending with a denunciation of his audience. The events take place in broad daylight; Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection are all in the past. Either the ballad’s author didn’t know the Biblical story, or didn’t care about it.
So whence comes this strange, arresting, slightly comic version of how the first Christian martyr met his death?
The author must have put it together from two bits of information: that Stephen was killed by stoning, and that the day devoted to his memory was celebrated the day after Christmas. (And how did that come to be, I wonder?) Plus his or her own wit and imagination, and knowledge of human nature.
What happens when you challenge people’s preconceived notions and the social structures they’ve built on them? First they brush you off with a horse-laugh: you must be crazy! It’s when they can’t do that anymore, when you’ve shown them that they’re the ones with the illusions, that things get really ugly. And, quite possibly, very bad for you.
I think it was Al Gore who said, in the context of global warming, that it’s hard to get a person to understand something when his or her job depends on not understanding it. In the ballad, Stephen’s job and even his life depend on his not grasping the implications of what he sees through the window of King Herod’s hall. Yet he understands them anyway, and has the courage to speak them aloud.
He could be a patron saint for this spooky century, when it’s possible to speak with a straight face about “alternative facts” and the concept of immutable, objective truth feels about as up-to-date as muttonchop whiskers. Let’s remember him this Feast of Stephen, and the story of the ballad that bears his name.
Wishing all my readers a happy and blessed 2019–a year of health, of peace, of dreams come true.
by David Halperin
Learn more about David Halperin on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidjhalperin
Connect to Journal of a UFO Investigator on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/JournalofaUFOInvestigator
and Find David Halperin on Google+
Read about my book Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO–coming in 2020 from Stanford University Press.
Don’t have time to keep checking my blog? Sign up for my monthly email newsletter, with summaries and links to the past month’s posts, plus oldies-but-goodies from the archive.
