On Christmas Day It Happened So

DESCRIPTION: A farmer goes out to plow on Christmas day. Jesus meets him there and asks him what he is doing. The farmer nervously says that he needs to work. Obviously this is not acceptable; the farmer is swallowed up by the ground and his family dies
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Gillington, Songs of the Open Road)
KEYWORDS: religious work Jesus curse
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South,West))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Palmer-FolkSongsCollectedBy-Ralph-VaughanWilliams, #41, "On Christmas Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hamer-GarnersGay, pp. 54-55, "On Christmas Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads 6, "In Dessexshire As It Befel" (1 text)
ST PBB006 (Partial)
Roud #1078
NOTES [217 words]: Yet another example of fine Christian charity. This one, fortunately, is apocryphal, with almost no parallel in scripture. There is one instance of the earth swallowing up people (Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Numbers 16:28-32). The rest has no parallel at all, except a curious passage in the early but periphrastic Gospel manuscript Codex Bezae (D/05). After Luke 6:4 it adds, "That same day, seeing someone working on the Sabbath, [Jesus] said to him, 'Fellow, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed, but if you don't know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law.'"
I wonder if this didn't somehow arise out of the Puritan movement. During the commonwealth era in England, it was declared that Christmas was a work day, and those NOT working on that day would be punished. This produced a great deal of resentment -- but the policy long continued; Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" partly in response to this.
Not all such stories are associated with Jesus himself. In Ireland, there is a field associated with the Irish St. Maeve. A ploughman once vowed he would plow the field despite its association with the saint. The ground is said to have swallowed horse, plough, and man, burying them in a depression still visible today. I'd love to know what the horse did to deserve that. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: PBB006

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography