Stille Nacht - Silent Night

Fr. Josef Mohr wrote a Christmas poem back in 1816. Two years later, on Christmas Eve, he asked the organist at the parish where he was serving to put the words to music for the midnight Mass that same evening. His friend Franz Gruber came through for him and "Silent Night" was born. The carol grew steadily in popularity and has been sung ever since.

100 years ago this evening, to the consternation of their chains of command, German and British soldiers sang this and other Christmas songs to each other in unofficial, locally-called truces at various points along the front. It was the first Christmas of World War I. [1, 2, 3]

The Old Testament in Old English Literature

According to Professor Malcolm Godden of Oxford University, "In terms of quantity at least, the Old Testament was the major influence on Old English literature: it was the source for about a third of the extant poetry and for a large part of the prose."   [source]

I wonder why the Old Testament had a greater impact on the literature of the time than the New Testament did? Was it because there are just more stories in the Old Testament to allude to? Was it because they lived in a violent time, and found meaning in the accounts of the wars of ancient Israel?

A Statue for Judas

“The monument to Judas appeared there [Sviyazhsk, Russia, the headquarters of Leon Trotsky] approximately at the same time, in 1918. The Military mobile Fighting Literary train named after Lenin with Leo Trotsky, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, well-known Russian Revolutionary poet Demyan Bedny and little-known Danish writer and journalist Galling Keller on board delivered a sculpture to Sviyazhsk.

“It was a sculpture with a fist up. There were other ideas towards the character, but Lucifer did not share the ideals of communism and the second pretender, Cain, was recognized as a too legendary person. So it was decided in favour of Judas, who was a historical character and was supposed to share ideas requested. Unfortunately, the monument was destroyed already in 1920-s.”

[source]

(Apparently falsely reported at the time as having been erected in Moscow. A second Judas monument may have been erected the following year in Tambov.)