"OMG! I need to write things you'll be interested in and not the junk I usually write. I need to include more pics and more jokes and more memes and be on top of everything!!! GAHH!!!"
Suddenly blogging became a burden and I don't want that. Blogging has to be fun for me, too. If it's not fun for me, how can you guys enjoy it, right? :)
So, I'm gonna go back to talking about random things that I've wondered about for a while.
I know this is not the right season, but I've wondered, for a long time, "WHO IS HE?"
Him. This guy:
Good King Wenceslas.
Now, if you celebrate Christmas by singing Christmas Carols, you've probably heard of
Good King Wenceslas.
The King that was apparently so good and nice and kind that someone made a song about him and we're singing about him to this day.
When I was little I thought it was "Good King Wenslesslas".
Well anyway, to refresh your memory,
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel
"Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know'st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes' fountain."
"Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither."
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather
"Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."
"Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."
In his master's steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing.
Lyrics from this website.
So, now do you remember it?
When I was little I thought it was,
"Good King Wenslesslas looked out
On the feast of Ste-ven
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crispen even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cru-el
When the poor man came in sight
Gathrin winter fu-u-el"
I was close.
So then we come to wonder, or, maybe it's just me. WHO DA HECK IS KING WENCESLAS??? The song says, he was a good King. He told his page to get food and stuff for this peasant man out of the good of his heart. He also went out in the snow to give the things to the poor man. A very nice kinda guy.
My Mom says he was a real person.
He probably was...he was probably really kind and good. Probably lots of people liked him...
What am I speculating by myself? We've got WIKI! I choose you Wiki-chu! (Pokemon second reference...I wonder where the first reference is...find it :) )
Wiki says this is a Czech king. Okay. For some reason I thought he was English, but you can't stereotype people like that.
This "Feast of Stephen" is apparently what they call Boxing Day, the day after Christmas.
His real name is " Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia".
Wenceslaus, Santa Claus...hm, similar spelling.
Anyways, so apparently this guy was already a Saint. A martyr. He even ruled the government (what government, Wiki? Idk.) at the age of 18. Can you believe it? Imagine one of your leaders being 18. Wow or yikes? Your choice. These days people live long enough to not have to rule a government at 18.
Wiki says "His martyrdom, and the popularity of several biographies, quickly gave rise to a reputation for heroic goodness, resulting in his being elevated to sainthood, posthumously declared king, and seen as the patron saint of the Czech state," (Wikipedia: Wenceslaus).
"Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later," (Wiki: Wenceslaus).
Wenceslaus, or Wenceslas, didn't get along with his siblings. But not like today. Not a little quibble here and there. His brother Boleslav hated his guts so much he wanted to kill Wenceslaus. So Boleslav gathers his companions and plans to kill his brother at a dinner they invite him to.
Boleslav's companions' three, jump on Wenceslaus, causing him to fall, and stab him until he dies (Wiki doesn't specify WHEN he dies but we can assume that if three people are stabbing him at the same time, he's gonna get pierced in the heart at some point and die). Then his brother, who didn't even bother killing Wenceslaus himself (as it can be assumed), runs him through with a lance while his brother falls (Wikipedia says so. Falls to where? Idk). Wenceslaus is now, FOR SURE, dead. He was stabbed and THEN run through with a lance. Talk about TOO MUCH.
But Boleslav doesn't get away with it cuz a priest prevents him from leaving.
Good goin' priest, who was just there in the right place at the right time.
Boleslav's son, is said to have been born the day Wenceslaus was killed. Boleslav named his son a name that meant "a dreadful feast". HE TOOK ALL THAT LEFTOVER HATRED FOR HIS BROTHER OUT ON HIS LITTLE BOY! Sheesh! :0
....twenty minutes
....thirty minutes....
I'm trying to find exactly why Wenceslaus was called a "Good King". He didn't REALLY do much.
Apparently there's this legend called the "King in the mountain". This king in the mountain sleeps, apparently (overuse of "apparently"), with his knights and when there's trouble in the lands, he wakes up and helps them all, saving the nation. One of them is...you guessed it! :D
"St. Wenceslas (Václav) of Bohemia (Czech Republic). He sleeps in the Blaník mountain (with a huge army of Czech knights) and will emerge to protect his country at its worst time, riding on his white horse and wielding the legendary hero Bruncvík's sword," (Wiki: King in the mountain).
There are TONS of heros and legendary peeps that "sleep in the mountain". I guess when the mountain rumbles, that's just all those people snoring.
Saint Wenceslaus can be found on his horse in Prague.
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| By No machine-readable author provided. Polyparadigm~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350681 |
Ah, there he is, upon his noble stead...stead, stede? Stallion, maybe? Or Mare?
"The statue is a popular meeting place in Prague. Demonstrations against the Communist regime were held there," (Wikipedia: Wenceslaus). Ooookay, Wiki-chu. Back inside your little ball of mystery.
So, Good "King" Wenceslas wasn't actually a king at all. He was a Duke. And many people liked him for being nice. So much they made a Christmas Carol for him. Hm, so he was a nobody who, out of nowhere became a somebody?
I'm serious, he really didn't do much. Even Wiki says so, "Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke" (Wikipedia: Good King Wenceslas). SEE? ONLY a duke. He was ONLY a duke. Plus, get this, he was called a king and a saint only AFTER his brother killed his dead body.
There were biographies on him AFTER he died. In one from the 12th century:
"But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched," (Wikipedia: Good King Wenceslas).
Well, it's not a bad thing. Just I had expected him to have at least DONE something...more.
The song we know today, was written in 1853 by some guy called Neale.
"John Mason Neale published the carol "Good King Wenceslas" in 1853, although he may have written his carol some time earlier, since he carried on the legend of St. Wenceslas (the basis of this story) in his Deeds of Faith (1849). Neale was known for his devotion to High Church traditions. According to older Czech sources, Neale's lyrics are a translation of a poem by Czech poet Václav Alois Svoboda, written in Czech, German and Latin," (Wikipedia: Good King Wenceslas).
You could say that, Duke Wenceslaus was a good person, who didn't do much, was overkilled by his brother, but lived on as a legend with an embellished legendary-person-fitting story AND with a Christmas Carol written in his name.
So yeah.
Maybe if we are good people, don't do much, we can live on as legends, too.
I left out the sibling murder part because idk how often we want THAT to happen. We have enough problems to deal with, we don't need one more.
Wait, just think about it. IMAGINE (not a John Lennon reference).
Imagine already being dead, extracted from your fleshy body, seeing yourself fall, and then your sibling runs a lance through your dead body. I wouldn't want to go to heaven with THAT stuck in my ghostly mind.
Well, now when we sing "Good King Wenceslas" we can think of it as just telling Duke Wenceslas, "Hey man, you're good. I like you, man. You did great, man. You're a great guy. A good sport." And then pat him on the back and do a little crazy jig in the catchy interval between each verse.
You know what part I'm talking about :)
See ya later, alligators :)
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