Why You Should Sing "Good King Wenceslas" Today

Which version of “Good King Wenceslas” do you like best?

Traditional - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQVUMG6LZ

The Irish Rovers – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5E8CXQwtrg  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMmxhhfQw0c

Bing Crosby -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3pcIKNttLU

                       

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, tho' the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel.

From Wikipedia . . .

"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol that tells a story of a king braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the day after Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia or Svatý Václav in Czech (907–935).

Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia and in England.   Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation.   These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the rex justus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.

Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.