Star singers

At a synod in Konstanz in Germany at Christmas in 1417 the British clergies performed the Star boy drama for the rest of the participants at the meeting.

[1] The performance was a huge success at the church conference and could have been one of the main reasons for the growing popularity of the drama in post-medieval Europe.

After the Reformation in the 16th century, pupils of the cathedral schools in Protestant nations conducted these processions to raise funds to replace the church support that had disappeared.

The custom passed further on to the general populace as a kind of narrative folk drama, but seems to have declined in its original form since the late 19th century.

The initials refer to the Latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedicat" (= May Christ bless this house); folkloristically the letters are often interpreted as the names of the Three Wise Men (Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar).

)[7] In Csávoly (Čavolj), during the afternoon, three young men dressed in white, with a belt tied around their shoulders, a saber at their side, and a hat similar to a bishop's mitre, would visit village homes and congratulate them Epiphany, holding a bright six-pointed star in their hand.

[9] The Star singers, aged about ten to fifteen, are dressed in long white shirts and pointed brown or white paper hats, in imitation of a well-known picture of the Biblical Magi as Babylonians Balthazar carries the star and Caspar and Melchior are armed with wooden swords.

In the performance, the Three Wise Men, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, are first confronted by Joseph, who tries to protect the newborn baby Jesus (a doll) and his wife Mary from the intruders with a wooden axe.

Both Gaspar and Melchior fight the king and his men with swords, together with Joseph who uses his broad axe, while Mary nurses her son and Balthazar takes care of the shining star.

The star itself is made anew each year, using transparent paper on a constructed frame built of wooden lists and with one to three candles placed inside.

Nowadays they are not carrying the shining star anymore, but just a quadrangular paraffin wax on a long stick or even a candle lamp with an ordinary handle.

By the 1900s it had largely disappeared, and there are now just a few places where the original play of the Star boys can be counted as an unbroken linear tradition, for instance the islands of Amager in Denmark, and Haram and Vigra on the west coast of Norway, but the most famous one is probably the Star boys' singing procession in the small town of Grimstad on the south coast of Norway.

[13][citation needed] In 19th century the Swedish Star boys started to join in with horse riding on St. Stephen's Day, 26 December.

In Finland, a version of the Star boys' procession originating in the city of Oulu, a musical play known as Tiernapojat, has become established as a cherished Christmas tradition nationwide.