Note 186 — 22 ST STEPHEN AND HEROD
Reading edition
Stephen in all the ballads can be none other than the first martyr, though Ihre, and other Swedes since his day, choose, for their part, to understand a "Stephanum primum Helsingorum apostolum," who certainly did not see the star in the east. The peasantry in Helsingland, we are told, make their saints' day December 26, too, and their St Stephen is a great patron of horses. The misappropriation of the glories of the protomartyr is somewhat transparent.