Why did King Wenceslas honor St. Stephen with a feast?

Why did King Wenceslas honor St. Stephen with a feast?

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Suffering from those Day After Christmas blues?

Well, I have some good news for you. The Christmas season isn’t over by any means!

Christmastide traditionally begins on Christmas Eve and runs to January 6, a holy day known as Epiphany or Twelfth Night that commemorates the Magi finding the Christ Child. Today, Dec. 26, is the feast of St. Stephen, who is mentioned by name at the beginning of one of our most beloved Christmas carols. Who hasn’t sung, “Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen”?

Stephen is the first martyr of the Christian religion. His tragic story can be read in Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7. Stephen, we are told, “was full of faith and power” and “did great wonders and miracles among the people” of Jerusalem. However, Stephen’s words and works angered certain members of a synagogue, who bribed men to say that Stephen had spoken “blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.” Stephen was seized and brought before the council.

When asked by the high priest whether the accusations made against him were true, Stephen gave a brief history of the Hebrew people. He then asked the council: “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.”

Council members “were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.” Stephen, however, remained unperturbed because he was “full of the Holy Ghost.” He told his persecutors, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” Stephen was taken outside the city and stoned to death.

Saul, who later become Christianity’s most celebrated convert, witnessed Stephen’s stoning. Acts 22:20 records hims as saying, “And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.”

Many of you are surely familiar with the preceding account of Stephen’s death. Did you know, however, another account of his martyrdom exists in the form of an ancient Christmas carol?

The earliest known version of “St. Stephen and King Herod” can be found in a manuscript from circa 1430 housed in the British Museum. It is included in “The English and Scottish Popular Ballads” and A.T. Quiller-Couch’s “The Oxford Book of Ballads.” In this strange carol, Stephen is a clerk in the court of King Herod.

Stephen is depicted as carrying a boar’s head from the kitchen when he sees the Star of Bethlehem. It’s extremely unlikely that Herod, a practicing Jew, would have chowed down on a boar’s head, however. The roasted head of a boar was a traditional Yuletide feast in long-ago England. Indeed, the “Boar’s Head Carol” is a song that celebrates the serving of a boar’s head at Christmas.

Upon seeing the Star of Bethlehem, Stephen “cast adown the boar’s head/and went into the hall/”I forsake thee, King Herod/And thy werkes all….There is a child in Bethlehem born/Is better than we all.” The baffled Herod asks, “What aileth thee, Stephen/What is thee befalle?/Lacketh thee either meat or drink/In King Herod’s hall?” Stephen assures Herod that he lacks nothing, but insists that an extraordinary child has been born.

The clerk’s words finally exasperate Herod to the point where he sarcastically insists that if Stephen’s words are true, the cooked capon on his plate will crow. And then: “That word was not so soon said/That word in the hall/The capon crew, Christus natus est (Christ is born)/ Among the lordes all.”

This miracle doesn’t soften the hearts of Herod and his guests, however. “Tooken they Stephen/And stoned him in the way/And therefore is his even/On Christe’s own day.” In other words, the Eve of St. Stephen falls on Christmas.

Would it be in poor taste to suggest that we celebrate St. Stephen’s Day by – well, getting stoned?

John J. Dunphy is an author, the Godfrey 15th Precinct Democratic Committeeperson and recording secretary for the Godfrey Democrats.