This legend, which was first printed (in 1845) in Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiae Antiquaa, I, 144, is, so far as is known, unique in several particulars. The common tradition gives Judas an extraordinary domestic history, but does not endow him with a sister as perfidious as himself. Neither is his selling his Master for thirty pieces accounted for elsewhere as it is here, if it may be strictly said to be accounted for here. A popular explanation, founded upon John, xii, 3-6, and current for six centuries and more, is that Judas, bearing the bag, was accustomed to take tithes of all moneys that came into his hands, and that he considered he had lost thirty pieces on the precious ointment which had not been sold for three hundred pence, and took this way of indemnifying himself. There is a Wendish ballad (Haupt and Schmaler, 1, 276) in which Judas receives from Jesus thirty pieces of silver to buy bread, and loses them while gambling with the Jews. At their suggestion he then sells his Master for thirty pieces.
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