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Dear Sophie, I don't know if you want to go into what the standard medieval homiliaries (which provided many of the lessons read in the liturgy) said about the Holy Innocents, but if you do: A lot of this teaching, including the status of the Innocents as the earliest Christian martyrs, is summed up in an Anglo-Saxon homily by AElfric that's included in *Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader*, one of the standard anthologies used in beginning Old English classes. The homily in question, on the Nativity of the Holy Innocents, is no. 5 in the first series of AElfric's *Catholic Homilies*. If you'd rather go straight to AElfric's Latin sources, the edition I have identifies them as (a) a homily attributed to Severianus, PL 95:1174; (b) pseudo-Augustine homily no. 218 in Migne, PL 39:2150; (c) pseudo-Augustine homily no. 220, PL 39:2152, and (d) a homily by Haymo, no. 12 in Migne, PL 118:75-82. with thanks for the great suggestions about Shrove Tuesday pancakes, Sherry Reames (English Dept., Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%