The manuscript which preserves this delightful little legend has been judged by the handwriting to be of the age of Henry VI. The manuscript was printed entire by Thomas Wright, in 1856, for the Warton Club, under the title, Songs and Carols, from a manuscript in the British Museum of the fifteenth century. The story, with the Wise Men replacing Stephen, is also found in the carol, still current, of 'The Carnal and the Crane' (No. 55). The legend of Stephen and Herod, with the miracle of the roasted cock, occurs in a number of Scandinavian ballads. The same miracle is found in other ballads, which, for the most part, relate to the wide-spread legend of the Pilgrims of St. James. The miracle occurs as an interpolation in two late Greek manuscripts of the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus (Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, p. 269, note 3), and seems to have originated in the East.
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