ABSTRACT
The origin of this ballad, like that of Judas (p. 153, above), lies in the ancient apocryphal material that accumulated around the narratives of the New Testament. In another ballad, The Carnal and the Crane (Child, No. 55), the same motif of the crowing cock is associated with the Wise Men and Christmas rather than with St. Stephen and the evening before St. Stephen’s Day (December 26).
