Christmas carols to listen to after Christmas

  • This is a re-run of the post I ran last year. But I’m still recov­er­ing from Christ­mas din­ner. Besides, it had pretty music to lis­ten to, so what’s not to love?
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    It’s two days after Christ­mas now, and the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio sta­tions have all gone back to play­ing the usual dreck. Have you ever noticed that the world’s inter­est in the “hol­i­day sea­son” abruptly cuts out once the pos­si­bil­ity for shop­ping is over? What a world.

    And what a pity! Because the Advent sea­son is over and the Nativ­ity sea­son is here. There’s still so much to say, so much to think about. So before you put away all the Christ­mas albums, you can reflect on two old clas­sics that would make more sense sung after Decem­ber 25 than before. (Heck, one of them you can wait until Sep­tem­ber to sing if you want.)


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    The Coven­try Carol (Lully, Lullay)

    Ties in with: The Slay­ing of the Holy Inno­cents — Decem­ber 29 (Decem­ber 26 in the West)
    Wikipedia link about the song: HERE

    If you don’t remem­ber the song, here’s part of it. They changed the words though, as peo­ple tend to do, that Old Eng­lish not mak­ing much sense to them. (buy the whole song HERE):

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    1229-14000innocents02.jpgThis is a song of such pure sweet­ness that it’s hard to believe that it’s a mother lament­ing her infant son who will soon be killed by Herod’s sol­diers. The song is all that’s left of a 15th cen­tury “mys­tery play” (a play that high­lighted parts of the Bible in song) called “The Pageant of the Shear­men and Tai­lors.” The lyrics are a lit­tle hard to fol­low, but what you can under­stand – together with the lilt­ing sad­ness of this melody — are enough to remind us that the first mar­tyrs to die for Christ were 14,000 chil­dren in Beth­le­hem. Here are the lyrics:
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    Lul­lay, Thou lit­tle tiny Child,
    By, by, lully, lul­lay.
    Lul­lay, Thou lit­tle tiny Child.
    By, by, lully, lullay.

    O sis­ters, too, how may we do,
    For to pre­serve this day;
    This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
    By, by, lully, lullay.

    Herod the King, in his rag­ing,
    Charged he hath this day;
    His men of might, in his own sight,
    All chil­dren young to slay.

    Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
    And ever mourn and say;
    For Thy part­ing, nor say nor sing,
    By, by, lully, lullay.

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    Good King Wenceslas

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    Ties in with: Either St. Stephen’s day — Decem­ber 27 (Decem­ber 26 in the West) OR St. Wences­laus day — Sep­tem­ber 28 (same in the West)

    Here’s a lit­tle of what it sounds like (buy the whole song in this ver­sion HERE)

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    .

    The lyrics are from 1863, the tune is a Finnish song of the 1500′s. The story is about the “good king” tak­ing pity on one of his lowly sub­jects on a winter’s day. Trekking through the snow with food and drink to give to a peas­ant, his page com­plains that the cold is too much for him. The king tells the page to fol­low in his foot­steps, and sure enough, when “in his master’s steps he trod,” the page finds he can bear the weather. So the song serves to remind 19th-century Chris­tians that to do an act of ran­dom kind­ness was to fol­low in their Master’s foot­steps. Not a bad thing to remem­ber now, too.

    stwenceslaus.jpg“King Wences­las” was St. Wences­laus, Prince of the Czechs, a much-beloved young ruler who was killed by his ambi­tious brother in 935 while on his way into Matins. He’s one of the main patron saints in the Czech Repub­lic and fig­ures in many leg­ends, includ­ing one in Prague that if the land is ever in dan­ger, his eques­trian statue will come to life so he can come to the rescue.

    And he’s an Ortho­dox saint, too, so if any­one is dying to have ‘Wences­laus’ as their church name, it’s legit. Just make sure you don’t spell it with­out the ‘u’ like the Christ­mas carol. But do make sure you look out on the Feast of Stephen. It may be bow­ing to pop cul­ture, but every­one will expect it of you.

    Apart from that men­tion of the date, there’s noth­ing tying it specif­i­cally to St. Stephen, so I sup­pose this carol is most aptly sung on St. Wences­laus’ day, Sep­tem­ber 28.

    Here are the lyrics of the song:

    .
    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

    .
    (Lit­tle bit of legalese here: In accor­dance with Title 17 U.S.C. Sec­tion 107, this mate­r­ial is dis­trib­uted with­out profit.)


    Related posts:

    1. One last Christ­mas prayer
    2. Get­ting all Christmas-d up here
    3. 2008 Stu­pid Christ­mas Present Winner
    4. Rejoice there­fore, O universe…
    5. So are we doing “Merry Christ­mas” or “Happy hol­i­days” or what?

    December 26th, 2008 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 12.26.2008

    I love The Coven­try Carol espes­cially, but both of these carols.

  • Mimi

    espe­cially. I really can spell.

  • Grace

    That’s okay. I assumed it was the effect of read­ing Olde Eng­lish for a bit. Or an eggnog hang­over. Either way. ;-)

  • Mimi

    Well, now that you men­tion it…probably both ;)

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