So Bring Him Incense, Gold, and Myrrh..

 A happy feast day on this the twelfth and last day of the Long Christmas! There is a brief article about forgotten customs of Epiphany on One Peter Five, to which I shall direct you attention. I also draw you attention to another article on the same sight, explaining the custom of chalking the doors on Epiphany, and gives the little ritual for doing so. The article on forgotten customs listed and event I had never heard of before-- the Precession of the Magi on the Clock Tower of Venice. There is a decent article about the this event here, and a video at the end, that plays through serval occurrences of this event. I love the little touch of the Kings doffing their crowns to the Madonna and Child. 

For this feast day, I am offering a version of What Child Is This from a concert by Apollo's Fire. Generally, this carol is sung to the tune of Greensleeves, but in this performance, it is sung to an old Irish tune called, My Lagan Love. It is very beautiful, and I like it:

Indeed, the entire Celtic Christmas Vespers performance is worth taking a listen of. For people like me who have managed to collect rather an encompassing range of carols-- including quite a number from a various Gaelic traditions-- all of this music sounds "Christmas" to me, as I have heard all of them before, mixed in with other, more common carols. Yet, even for people to whom most or all of these songs are new, it is very lovely, very joyful, and a fitting way to close out Christmas and head into the season of Epiphany.

On Epiphany Eve

Today you are getting something a little different... in fact, you're getting it twice. Christ Has My Hart, Ay is an old, Scottish song, which, if you go trying to find out more about, you will discover is also referred to as a "hymn", "carol" and "psalm". As far as we can tell, it has its origins in a collection of music inspired by Martin Luther, and the Reformation, and called Ane Compendious Buik of Godlie Psalmes-- also known as The Dundee Psalms, or The Gude and Godlie Ballates. This rather curious work was published in 1567, but seems to be a reprint of a slightly older work, and is composed of songs based on Psalms, and the reworking of popular songs, either as parodies, or as adaptions. While there is some uncertainty about the authorship of this collection, it is generally accepted to be the work of the Wedderburn brothers, all of whom were ardent reformers. What makes the inclusion of this particularly song interesting, is the fact that Our Lady is treated with great reverence. It specifically informs us that, next to Christ, we must "love his mother fair/ With steadfast hart for evermair/ She bore the birth, freed us from care"-- which this Papist may be excused for finding extremely Papist... Our Lady was not exactly beloved of the Reformers.

The first version of this song is by the Battlefield Band, who apparently set it to music, as the original has been forgotten. As you can see, it falls into that category of old Christmas carols (once quite common, and still somewhat extant in the form of What Child is This) that are focused on Christ's coming Passion as well as His birth:

You are also getting this somewhat longer and more Christmassy version by Emily Smith. The original did, indeed, have only the verses which this Battlefield Band performs. This version, according to folkradio.co.uk, "expands to embrace more contemporary influences and an intense, joyful final chorus." All well and good... but it really doesn't? There is one verse there that might be entirely new, but most of the expanded lyrics are simply borrowed wholesale from Balulalow-- another old (and very cheerful) Scottish Christmas carol, which, according to Hymns and Carols of Christmas, is also from the Gude and Godlie Ballates...  Hardly deserving of the label "contemporary influences", even if the focus of Balulalow is more on the exuberant joy of the Holy Birth:

(As a side-note: both the Battlefield Band and Emily Smith are Scottish... I find the fact that the word "heart" is spelled "hart" on one recording, "hairt" on the other, and that the singers, correspondingly, pronounce it differently, to be very intriguing.)

The 10th Day of Christmas

 Today is the feast day of St. Titus-- St. Paul's friend and fellow missionary. St. Paul gets a reputation for being a bit hard and austere, but in his letters to and concerning Titus, we see a solicitous and human side of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. He advises Titus, "Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thy frequent infirmities." which is quite a gentle and kindly advice not only to his friend, but to those of us who are unable, for various reasons, to do bigger penances: it is perfectly acceptable to take care of the body, and keep it well. St. Paul even advises it. An even more human side of St. Paul is seen in his letter to the Corinthians, in which he says "And when I was come to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened unto me in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went into Macedonia." The stern and austere Paul was so saddened by missing a friend whom he expected to see, that he writes about it in a letter of instruction to the community at Corinth! If that isn't the most relatable sentiment, I do not know what is!

Today is also the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton-- an American saint (born in 1774, just as the young nation was fighting for its existence.) and a convert to the Catholic faith. She was a wife, a widow, and an educator, and my mom took her as a patron saint when she started homeschooling us. On the rare occasions we went out to do something (a field trip, participation in a reading club, etc.) that required a school name, she put us down as "St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Academy". I, therefore, have a soft spot for this saint, and thought that it might be neat to highlight a carol (albeit, a Protestant one) that was written in 1778, by an American composer, William Billings. It is called Boston for unclear reasons-- it has nothing to do with that city at all, but is merely a fine old, properly Christmas song. Those who would like to read a little more about its history can check out the information below this midi rendering of the song (quite a good rendering, as far as midis go). And here it is, sung by the Boston Camerata:

The Octave of the Feast of St. John

 In other words, Tolkien's birthday is today: his 130th birthday to be exact. And that is how he described his birthday. "Since I was born on the Octave of St. John the Evangelist, I take him as my patron-- although neither my father, nor my mother at the time, would have thought of anything so Romish as to give me a name because it was a saint's." (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 309) As is the custom on this blog, we always mark Tolkien's birthday with some sort of post that is as relevant to The Professor as to the season. Sometimes-- as was the case last year-- I am able to find something that happily is BOTH a Christmas and a fittingly Tolkien-ish carol to post. This year, alas, I have not had such good fortune. So I shall post two things. In honour of The Professor, here is a very charming chanting of the Litany of Loretto, translated into Quenya and presented by Ryszard Derdziński (a.k.a Galadhorn, who hosts this website-- alas, now mostly defunct, but possessing a rather lovely gallery of Elvish art, and a decently in-depth examination of the Tolkien Languages featured in the Jackson films.)

In honour of the Christmas season (and with a slant-wise glance to Tolkien) I am posting a Welsh carol, Tua Bethlem Dref . There does not seem to be much history to it. According to Hymns and Carols of Christmas, it is based off a traditional hymn (with no date included, so I have no idea how old it is) The words are by a Welsh poet, William Evans (a.k.a. Will Ifan) and the music is by David Evann (a.k.a. Edward Arthur). It was featured in a PBS Movies A Child's Christmas in Wales (based off Dylan Thomas's sweet and hilarious book of the title), which was produced in 1987. As you can see, its not particularly clear if the thing was originally a hymn to which Will Ifan's poem was attached, and later, Edward Arthur wrote new music (or just reset the old) for the movie... or if it began life as a poem, and an old hymn became the basis of a new tune for it to be sung by. Still, though its provenance is both vague and recent, it is a beautiful song, with beautiful lyrics, and I like it, so here it is:

On to Bethlehem town;

Join the crowd and travel down;

Down the road that leads us to the cradle.

Come all who are able.

Come, come to the stable with

Hearts full of joy as we kneel and pray

Come and see the child,

With his mother Mary mild.

Come along and worship at the cradle.

There we'll see the boy;

Hearts aglow with boundless joy;

In the everlasting word.

We will bow before for Him

Come, come and adore Him

Bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

On to Bethlehem town;

Join the crowd and travel down.

Down the road that leads us to the cradle.

 

Something Much Newer

 As anyone who as followed this blog even passingly for any length of time knows, I am not a great fan of newer Christmas music. (An argument can be made that I do not like new things at all, but since I do not exactly go out of my way to avoid technology-- says the blogger with a flip phone and no television-- that is a silly thing to argue). However, every now and again I come across something modern and very beautiful, and I decide to share it. Such is the case with this Christmasy piece by Arvo Pärt, Bogoróditse Djévo. (No, I do not know how to say that. Nor spell it. Thank heaven for copy and paste technology!) It is quite, quite new, being commissioned from the Estonian composer by the King's College Choir for their 1990 Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. It is basically just the Hail Mary (with a few extra lines) in Church Slavonic, (the above link shares the original lyrics, and the English translation) but it is a very, very cheerful, delightfully exultant little piece and it seems more than fitting as a selection for this Sunday after the Octave of Christmas, known in our day as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus-- the Annunciation being, after all, when the Name was first given to the Babe Who Was to Be Born. Since the King's College Choir commissioned the piece, here they are performing it:

In Which I Manage to Unearth Yet Another Uncommon Wassail

There will, no doubt, come a time when I have found so many wassailing songs, that all else available to me is merely a repetition of previous version, or wassails that are basically recycled version of other one-- though, to be fair, given the free use of stock phrases such as "jolly wassail" and the repeated idea of wishing health and plenty to the Master and Mistress, wassails generally do that already. However, since that is rather common in all folk musical traditions (for example, beating drums slowly, and playing various woodwinds lowly is done quite frequently in wildly diverse folks songs), I do not really consider it as recycling until the majority of the words are the same as are found in other similar songs.... Anyway, as I was saying, a day may come when the finding of original wassails songs to post fails me... but it is not this day!

The Bodmin Wassail is apparently of Cornish Origin. And, apparently, they still wassail regularly in Bodmin, Cornwall. Indeed, if you take a wee peek in here, you will see that there is a plan to do it this year, and that, according to their custom, I am rather jumping the gun a bit, as this is supposed to be a Twelfth Night (i.e. January 6th: Epiphany) event. However, wassails seem fitting for the New Year, so, begging all Cornishmen's pardon, I am making so bold as to post it on this cheerful day instead.

The Old Year Now Away Has Sped--- and Good Riddance to It.

 This has been a very odd year-- one of the oddest I have ever lived through. It was most certainly eventful. There were many natural occurrences. It began with one of the warmest and driest winters on record (a great grief to those of us who require a good, long cold spell to feel human). Then there were earthquakes-- so many that I have quite lost count, and cannot even give you an estimate of the numbers we had from the first of the year through May, when they happily stopped. Despite the lack of serious winter, we had the usual war between winter and spring that always happens here, with periodic, short lived snowfalls-- usually those go through about Memorial Day, but this year, our last measurable snow fell in mid-June.... and in less than a week, we went from that, to catastrophically hot weather. At least, hot for here. We seldom get above the mid-to-upper-eighties during the summer. When we do (and I recall only a very few times in my life in which that has happened) it is a one or two day occurrence, which so colours our perception, that we talk for many years after about that "one hot summer". This year, we were at ninety and over for a whole week, and the local population was prostrate from it-- and people like myself, who cannot tolerate hot weather at all, were unspeakably miserable. It broke at last, thanks be to God and all His little helpers (to quote my estimable mother), but then came the smoke. The entire arid, crying-for-water West Coast, from Southern California, to Northern Washington, apparently went up in flames, and this summer will probably be remembered as much for the ever-present pall of smoke, as for the record heat. My lungs still ache when I think of it. There was a wildfire to the North of us, which was troubling, but not too close. And a fire to the East of us, which was a bit more alarming... and then, in mid-August, a fire to the West of us, burning uphill through the river canyons, driven by the late Summer zephyr winds that I usually welcome as a blessed reminder that summer cannot last forever, and that cooler, happier days will come again. That last fire burned far too close for comfort, and we were forced to evacuate in the middle of the night, saving what we could, and living for a week with friends. Words cannot express the unbounded joy of hearing that your very beautiful home has been spare from conflagration, nor how that joy is compounded by driving back up the mountains, and seeing the Lake in all its glory, and the town itself untouched and nearly smokeless. Nor can one adequately describe the wonder that colour-- the good, clean, natural colours of the world-- can inspire, unless one has looked at the world through smoke, and ashes for the better part of a month, and suddenly sees the world in its own, proper light again. Then finally, it was October, and there came rain, and snow, and the thirsty Earth rejoiced, and the inhabitants of wildfire-country rejoiced, and since this year was bound and determined to be a year of extremes... that was a record spell of weather, and November, not to be outdone, outdid itself with being warm and dry, and December decided that at last, this was her moment to shine, and tore open the floodgates of the skies, and snowed us in right properly. And here we stand, at the end of a wild-ride of a year, rather hoping that none of that ever happens again.

But the natural eventfulness was accompanied by Life events as well. Three weddings we had in my family this year-- one during evacuation, and one with an outdoor reception on the first, snowy day in October. I came down with shingles of all things-- a strange and fascinating disease it is.. and painful. I was painfully fascinated with the condition for a month or so, and got woefully behind on things that I was supposed to be doing... because it is quite difficult to concentrate when one is either a great big giant itch, or suffering from weird, shooting nerve-pains. The ridiculously difficult situation at work came to a head at last, resulting in a long leave that is resolving itself slowly into a more permanent solution-- much grief and anger at first, giving way to a profound relief and sense of release. God clearly took matters into His own Hands, and made a difficult decision for me (since I clearly was not going to make it myself). It was a great blessing, the way things worked out, for all of the stress and worry that the different steps entailed. So, while I cannot say that I am happy about the way things played out... the way things played out has resulted in a happier me, so all is well after all.

All and all, a memorable year-- some happy memories, some not so happy memories, some down-right miserable memories... and I am glad to have gotten through it all, but am not sure I am looking to the futures with quite the sense that "next year will be a good year"  that I have previously looked to New Years... I'm not even sure if I am looking towards the future with "surely the coming year will be better than this one.".... Indeed, I am standing on the brink of a New Year, looking out on its impassive surface, and feeling a good deal of misgiving about it. If I were a Doctor Who character, I'd no doubt poke at the New Year (unadvisedly) with a stick. Still, it is the turning of a page, and I am hoping to carry the good of this year with me into the New, to leave the bad of it behind in the burned out mess that this last year was, and perhaps... just perhaps to find a way to grow and be happy in this new place, now that so much of the burden of the last couple years has been cut away from me. That is a rather pious aspiration, and I have a limited track record of success with such hopes and wishes, but I intend this evening to have a very nice whisky, in a very nice glass, and toast to that hope. 

And here we come to the song I am posting. Novus Annus Dies Magnus. What can I tell you about it? Next to nothing. It is clearly Medieval, and it is clearly heralding a new year, and it is clearly referencing the Birth of Christ ("Lux eterna de superna venit ad nos regia". Even for those of us with a poor knowledge of Latin can find the phrase "Eternal Light", and the word "come" and the word "reign" in there... ). And there are clearly references to the Fall of Adam, and our redemption by Christ on the Cross. However, I cannot find a translation of it, nor can I find any actual history about the song. Its been recorded many times-- I have listened to a ridiculous number of them, both because I like the tune, and also because youtube vids sometimes have the equivalent of "liner notes" in the descriptions underneath, and I was hoping someone might see fit to tell me about it, only no one did. The two most notable recordings I can find of it place it in wildly different settings. One is in an album called Campus Stellae, which (as one might guess from the title) is music associated with the Santiago de Campostella pilgrimage. The other is from an album called The Feast of Fools which is full of exceedingly... odd... and possibly blasphemous titles, such as Mass of the Asses, Drunkards and Gamblers... it includes Orientis Partibus as First Vespers.... I have nothing to say about the inclusion of this tune into two such disparate albums. I shall offer that the Feast of Fools and Lord of Misrule nonsense was a Christmas/New Year phenomenon, so a song which references that... may be at home with other songs of the season? But then... how did so tainted a song get associated with the pilgrimage of Santiago de Campostella? Or did it work in reverse: pilgrimages were times of festivity and it gradually got associated with a festive season? Or is one or the other... or even both?... recordings were wrong to include it with their themes? Perhaps, if I were truly a Medievalist (and not an armature wannabe) I could offer you a better explanation. But I'm not and I can't. But it is a dandy wee song, so here it is anyway. 

Fermarono i Cieli

 I have mentioned the Chieftains' Christmas in Rome album before on this blog (here and here in case you want to look them up). It is a bit of an odd outing for the traditional Irish band-- even when they do World-Musicky albums (such as Santiago) they tend to simply throw a bunch of music at you. There may be a theme to the album, but in general, it is a collection of music. Christmas in Rome does do that too, but it also uses tunes (most notably The March of the Three Kings and Canzone de Zampognari) as reoccurring motifs that anchor the various orchestral and traditional pieces into a unified whole. The album does have a both a distinctive Italian and an Irish vibe, as one would expect from such an album title, coming from such a band... But there are also random odd things in there, such as a very French version of O Holy Night, and Silent Night in various languages, and a Bulgarian carol... and a German carol... and an Irish Gaelic carol, sung by the monks of Glenstall Abbey.... and most inexplicable of all, the Harlem Gospel Choir, doing very Gospel covers of songs which-- given the album's lush mix of classical orchestration, the Chieftains' distinctive sound, and traditionally approached European carols-- is rather jarring to my ear. Unlikely the aforementioned Santiago album, which has no real unifying theme, other than to look at Spanish (including New World Spanish) musical traditions, Christmas in Rome is at once a more focused and a more scattered collection of music, which nonetheless, manages to mostly work, and which is still one of my favourite out-of-the-box Christmas albums. 

A particularly beautiful Italian carol is featured in it. Fermarono i Cieli is sung by Paola Cecchi, and a beautifully arranged by Monsignor Marco Frisina. The words are written by St. Alphonsis de Liguori (who also wrote Tu Scendi dalle Stelle a.k.a. Canzone de Zampognari) and a translation can be found here. On the CD, this song medleys into an Irish Gaelic lullaby, which is quite charming, but I thought I'd like to just share the beautiful Italian Christmas song on its own, so here it is:

Welcum Yul!

Once I started posting songs for this Christmas season-- as I so commenced on December 27th-- I had every intention of posting once a day regularly until the end of the 12 days. Alas for good intentions: we have had some adventurous times in these regions, and whilst I have thoroughly enjoyed the adventures for the most part, it has rather gotten in the way of musical research. I have, of course, already mentioned the snow-- a snowfall which seemed to me to be entirely in keeping with the sort of snow that is quite usual for us here, but which, it transpires, has set a record for snowfall in the month of December. Well and good that is, especially given Saharan conditions of the past year, but even mighty snowfalls do not, in themselves, adventures make. For a proper adventure we must throw in very badly plowed roads and several main roads in and out of one's small, mountain tourist town shut down due to the weather; and when the street in front of your house finally gets a lick and a promise from the plow drivers, a staggeringly epic berm at the entrance of your driveway, many feet high, and many feet wide, which requires several hours of hard labour to clear away; and masses of people who have not been able to ski here in 3 years for various reasons, running up in a veritable stampede to partake of the fresh white powder; people who, having come up for skiiing and/or Christmas, find themselves snowbound for several days, and who, in their desperation to leave again, attempt to flee en masse, resulting in deadlocked traffic that prevents anyone (including the local population, many of whom are dragging their stiff-from-shovelling bodies in to work) from getting anywhere again ever... and this deadlock exists for miles upon miles upon miles, so that a state of emergency must be called, and the deadlocked motorists are turned back to whence they came; and the town running out of gasoline; and, in the midst of all of this attempting to visit one's own family members who have come in from out of town for this most festive and beautiful of season, specifically to partake in the beautiful festivities, and who must leave sooner than anyone wishes to be the case. All of which is a very round about way of saying that I was too much occupied yesterday to spare much thought for carol-hunting, much less attempt a post. But snow has temporarily ceased to fall, and it is again possible to get from one point of town to another in a reasonable time, and the plows went by twice, leaving considerably less epic berms this time (though the state of the roads is still pretty appalling) so life is quite tame at present, and I can again consider such things as appropriate Christmas songs. 

And I got quite lucky with this one. Today is the feast of St. Thomas a Beckett, which is not generally an easy feast to match music to. However, I stumbled into this recording of Welcum Yule, which is not only in fine Middle English (which is, of course not the language of St. Thomas, but its still fun), it specifically mentions the martyred bishop of Canterbury. I am not sure how old it is. Hymns and Carols of Christmas finds it in a collection of Ancient Songs and Ballads From The Reign of King Henry the Second To The Revolution. (1790), and lists it as "Class II. Comprising the Reigns of Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI."... but I do not know from which reign it actually comes. The lyrics listed on the website include several more verses than are sung here, and welcome various other parts of the Christmas celebrations. It is an all together cheerful little carol:

Snow Had Fallen, Snow on Snow....

 

....Snow on Snow. In the bleak Mid-Winter.....

I am quite delayed in posting my usual Christmas tunes this year, and the explanation is in the title of this posting: It has been snowing on and off for a week, and I have been shovelling tremendous amounts of snow. Behold, the current state of my yard and the street where I live:

This is not a particularly unusual amount of snow for this area. We have, alas and alack, suffered from drought for the last few years. And last year in particular was an extremely paltry winter, dry and warmer than average. So, it has been a few years since we have had to contend with quite this much of the fluffy, white stuff all at once. But those slack years are something of an exception, and storms like this generally occur here two are three times during the season, with numerous small storms in between.... And I love them. I always love them. I never get tired of the snow. Not even when it occurs in non-winter months, such as September or June. Not even when-- as with this year-- the plow drivers are sort of awol most of the time, and when they do show up, leave awe-inspiring berms of ice and snow (mine was something absurd like 3 feet high, and 6 feet wide, and the one in my mother's yard made mine look small and gentle by comparison.), which take several hours of hard labour to clear. 

Since, however, I have been so busy shovelling, I have had little time to put serious thought into the sorts of songs I wish to share this year, so I am beginning with something that has nothing whatsoever to do with today's feast of St. John, but rather is simply something that has been going around in my head for obvious reasons. In the Bleak Midwinter is based on a poem by the incomparable Christina Rossetti. This version is sung by Julie Andrews, and is likely my favourite version:

I Will Not Say the Day is Done, Nor Bid the Stars Farewell.

This is a post I wrote back in March or April, and never got around to posting. Some of the circumstances it references (mostly obliquely) have changed somewhat since the writing. In the main, however, the concerns and struggles are the same (including the work situation), and the ideas I am working through in this essay (if I may so boldly style it) I am working through still. 

DISCOURAGEMENT

I recently watched this video on the concept of hope on Tolkien's writing. I not only found the idea of those two different types of hope intriguing, but it provided me for words (albeit, invented words) for the way I have been facing the world these last months. Amdir, as it is described in the video, and defined here, seems to me to be a sort of worldly hope: something that might reasonably be expected if certain other things work out. The definition of Estel, however, seems much more akin to the Theological virtue of Hope. And, indeed, if one reads the explanation in The Tolkien Gateway, it appears to be exactly that in Arda and Middle Earth. It makes that concept of hope in the stories all that more profound, and the words of Aragorn's mother, "I have given Hope to men, I have kept none for myself" even more poignant. 

The last year has been singular and difficult, in ways that none of us could have foreseen in those early days of March, when our ostensibly normal world began to show just how mad it was. For me, there has been an added difficulty: I am quite claustrophobic, and by nature, prone to anxiety. Previously, neither of these things had had a particularly noticeable impact on my daily life. One simply avoids things that trigger the first, and becomes adept at working through the second. However, the mask mandates have changed that. Avoidance and work-arounds are no longer really possible. Basic errands have been a struggle for me, and the effect on my job (where the accommodations made for me leave much to be desired), profoundly demoralising. This, combined with what seems to me to be an unnecessary amount of other life challenges, has left me feeling particularly bleak about the future. Yet, though I do indeed feel that bleakness to the fullest, I have at the same time, the unshakeable conviction that God still has me in His hands, and that He will bring great good of this. To use Tolkien's words, I am without amdir, but hold on to estel.

There is something profound in this distinction, beyond the linguistic efficiency the words provide. Amdir is useful for making decisions in the here and now. It can provide motivation and determination in difficulties. It can, in theory, be a tool for the virtues both of Prudence, and of Courage. And yet, it is ultimately mutable and unreliable. The world is changeable, however much times of peace and apparently stability might cause us to think otherwise. We can have a reasonable expectation for the future, but we cannot make that future a pure end of itself. If our hope is merely amdir, then we stand in very real peril of being broken by Life. Estel, on the other hand, being of God, transcends the here and now, and looks to the Real beyond what we can perceive with our human senses. It is not optimism. Optimism is more the province of amdir than estel. Nor is it a sort of delusional wishful thinking that comes from a refusal to accept the reality of a situation. As Our Lady askes the defeated Alfred in The Battle of the White Horse, "Do you have joy without a cause/Yea, faith without a hope?" Estel knows that "even the very wise cannot see all ends", that we all have our own part to play in the Great Story that began in Genesis. God makes nothing that is not needful, and therefore, however obscure the purpose He has given to our lives might be to us whilst we are living them, there is indeed a purpose. It is what gives Joy, when there seems to be no cause for it, Faith, though the lower hope of amdir says there is no point. 

Further, estel creates a difficult paradox: that which is best for us as creatures who are Soul as well as Body, may not be what is best for us from a purely bodily perspective. For we are not bound to this World. We abide in the beauty of it for a given space, and when our allotted time is spent, we are taken out of it again. And the World, coming from the Hands of God, is a very beautiful place. And we, poor homesick creatures, make ourselves very much at home in the pleasure He saw fit to supply it with-- to the point that any loss of those pleasures seems to us to be the most terrible thing that can befall us. But we are not meant for it forever. All of the desires of our hearts cannot be fulfilled here. This is merely a materiel place, however shot-through with God's glory it is. The two-foldedness of our nature means that the Soul is always crying out for what the material can never supply. Death is not an ultimate evil, to be avoided at all cost. It is a price we pay to have those desires fulfilled at last. Estel, in short, looks to the Good-- if that can be found in some measure here, so much the happier, but even if we find ourselves in darkness, Estel allows us to keep on walking through that darkness to "whatever end" God intends for us.

And it is here that the supernatural nature of estel is revealed: those who hold fast to estel do not necessarily expect to enjoy temporal victories. We are small creatures, and the bodily part of our natures so clamourous and demanding, that we do not readily apprehend the great spiritual world that we inhabit by right of being made after the Image and Likeness of God. We know that all things work together for the Good, but are so blinded by the needs of our own weak selves, that we do not readily internalise what that means. We cannot see how all the small, hidden sufferings and crosses, known only God and ourselves, can have merit beyond the atonement of sins and our own purification. And yet, God places a disproportionate value on those clumsy, fumblingly heroic little efforts-- and because of that great value, in His ineffable wisdom, He sometimes allows us the astonishing privilege of sharing the Chalice of His Own Passion. How many cloistered monks and nuns, how many hidden martyrs have shared in the Cup, draining it to the lees? We do not know the names of those great souls, and yet, much that is green and good in the world continues to be, because of a heroism that makes no sense from a worldly perspective. Estel gives us the ability to look unflinchingly into the cold, hard reality of suffering and defeat, and to still chose to go on, like Theodan in The Return of the King, who admitted that the Rohirrim could not defeat the enemy, but averred that "we will meet them in battle nonetheless". Our sufferings may seem like pointless, hidden things. We are not often allowed to see the great good that comes out of our imperfect offerings of self to God. But, in a way, that is the point of Estel. Christ's words in the Gospel concerning the lilies of the field, and the sparrows, whose fall He marks, mean simply what they say: we are always in His care, no matter what. He did not say that He would spare us the fall. His promise is almost too magnificent for our small minds to comprehend. He is not promising us a happy life (though, because He is the softest of all hearts, He often grants that in very full measure). He is promising us Ultimate Happiness; the happiness of Heaven, which contains all that makes this World so terribly sweet to us, but brought to fullness and perfection. He is promising not just the experience of all good things, but intimate communion with the ultimate Good. In the wake of that promise, our own full measure of sorrow here-- meted out as befits our strength-- really matters very little. It takes the Theological virtue of Faith to believe that, and it takes Estel to live our lives around that truth. To quote again from The Ballad of the White Horse, we "harden our hearts with hope".

Which brings us back to the Current State of Things. The clear-eyed realist in me (tyrant that it is) takes a good, hard look around, and sees very little reason to believe things will improve any time soon. I do not know how long the rampant madness we see around us will endure. I have no idea what will happen with my job, nor where I shall be in life several months hence. I expect a return of better days, but also expect that there will be worse before there is better. I feel the burden of these worries to the fullest. Yet, though my heart is making a storm of distress in itself, I find that my soul is not greatly disturbed. Things are as God intends, and no matter what happens, He marks me with attention, and  though He may try me to my utmost, He will never go further than that. The rest does not matter. This, I believe, is Estel: a pure gift of God, of which I am slightly afraid. But I trust that He sees the effort I am making to walk in that Hope; to be like Sam in Cirith Ungol, refusing to be defeated by darkness...  and that is enough. 

Now Down with Rosemary and with Bay

 Today is the feast of Candlemas-- the 40th day from Christmas, and the last day of the season. On this day we celebrate Our Lady's purification in the Temple, according to the Jewish custom. The Mass of today features a great many candles, and traditionally, if you wanted to have your own candles blessed, this was the day to do it. I did a post on this feast last year, with various useful links, which you are more than welcome to revisit. Today I am posting a carol called Candlemas Eve (and yes, I am late, as it is now Candlemas evening and not the eve of the feast. Och weel. Sich is life.) The words are fairly old, being written by the English poet, Richard Herrick, in the 1600s, though, according to The Hymns and Carols of Christmas, the chorus appears to be added later. There are several version of this carol floating about youtube, but I particularly appreciated this version, as it contains both the carol, and an even older poem called I am Christmas (both of which feature on the fisheaters article on Candlemas traditions I have previously linked to, but provide again here).

Therefore be Merry

I have spoken about Epiphany here before, and mentioned how my family always celebrates this last day of Christmas with merriment much along the lines of Christmas. It is always a very beautiful and happy day for us, and the expectation of it helps to maintain that sense of Christmas tide that might otherwise be lost in the day to day between the two feasts. From now until February, we are in the season of the Epiphany, and there is a continued sense of joy. This being the case, it seems appropriate to end the 12 days of Christmas with a song reminding us of this fact:

Here's a Health to the Company

 We cannot allow the Christmas season to pass without posting a wassail can we? Well, yes, I suppose we can, but it is rather fun to see if I can uncover a new-to-me wassailing song each year. This year's entry is an American wassail-- because, apparently, wassailing hopped the Atlantic. (You can read about the history here and here. Wassailing apparently got caught up with the Lord of Misrule stuff that I have always found rather repulsive, but I still like the tradition and the songs tend to be fun and catchy. And I like them, and this is my blog, so I will continue to post them. So there.)

The wassail I am posting is called The Kentucky Wassail, though I have come across at least one version that changes Kentucky to Ohio. I am not sure how old this song actually is. It may have been collected by John Jacob Niles, a noted musicologist from Kentucky, or it may have been something that he wrote himself, based off older Appalachian song traditions. It has lyrics that are similar to ones found in both the Gloucestershire Wassail, and the Somerset Wassail, though it definitely has a bit more of that mountain music swing that is associated with American traditional music. 

A Toast to the Professor

 If The Professor, J. R. R. Tolkien himself, was a long lived as his hobbits, today would be his 129th birthday. I celebrated by hosting a chicken dinner for my family, followed by a nice, nutty cake (the family's contribution to the feast) and tea. Followed by... well, my sister's ultimate cut of the Hobbit movies. Now, it should be made clear that I am not a fan of the Hobbit movies. I watched the first, and did not hate it. Indeed, the scene where the dwarves all starting singing the Misty Mountain song still seems to me to be a very good and inspiring scene. I watched the second, was disappointed by it, and disgusted with the stupid Kili and Tauriel thing. For a good long while, I did not bother with the last, having no desire to watch the Professor's delightful story to be increasingly ransacked, nor the well cast Bilbo be a side character in his own movies. When I finally did watch it, I fully expected it to be a disappointment.... but somehow, it managed to disappoint even more than I thought it would-- quite a feat, that. However, my sister manage to take the bloated bores that those three movies were, ruthlessly eliminate all the dead weight (No Tauriel at all, no White Orc, no weird side story with Gandalf, the Elves and the Necromancer, a bare minimum of strange elves defying physics.) while also adding back in scenes from the extended edition-- notably, allowing Beorn to actually be a character-- and the result was a surprisingly watchable 3 hour movie. We paused it at 9 pm, so that we could lift our glasses of Good Drink, and in unison toast, "To the Professor" quite heartily, which was ridiculously good fun. Throw in the fact that we were able to have Mass today, and you have a perfect Tolkien Birthday.

In honour of the good Professor, and this blessed season in which he was born, I am posting a song that I am ridiculously pleased to have found. There is a bit of a story as to how I came across it: to whit I got an odd notion that perhaps Earendel/Earendil, brightest of stars, may have been given the task of guiding the Wisemen to find our Lord in Bethlehem. I sort of wondered if anyone else had had that idea, and if there mightn't be a picture of it. Though, alas, pictures were not to be had, apparently, the Right Reverend Charles William Stubbs did indeed have the same idea I did, but he got it before Tolkien even came up with his own brightest of stars. The Right Reverend Charles William Stubbs wrote a poem, called The Carol of the Star, in which he explicitly identifies the Christmas Star as Earendel. The invaluable Hymns and Carols of Christmas has this posted on their website, along with sheet music to the music it was later set to. Nothing for it, of course, but to try to find a recording.... which I did eventual, but only after I abandoned poor Reverend Stubbs in my searching, and stuck entirely to the composer, T. Tertius Noble. And lo and behold, here is a Christmas carol, in which we sing "Hail Earendel!" as the refrain:

The Old Year Now Away is Sped

 In the only real blog post I made in 2020 that was not a Christmas post, I mention the very many good and beautiful things that occurred, despite the year being somewhat more fraught than anyone expected. I still hold that 2020 was a year full of a great number of very good things, though shortly after I composed that piece, life became increasingly more complicated than need be. It is quite difficult to navigate a world in which every blessed person must have a covered face, if one happens to be prone to claustrophobia and anxiety. Work becomes difficult, involving doctor's notes, and reclassifications. Shopping for necessities becomes a great burden. Day to day life becomes odd, as one tries to navigate through all of this-- and after a while, quite demoralising-- especially when there does not seem to be an end in sight. Yet, in the balance against this, is the fact that our local Church (while not always able to offer Mass) has never closed. I have been able to make daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and there is Adoration every Monday. There have been lovely astronomical events, including the Neowise comet in late July, and the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, just before Christmas-- both of which we observed out at the lake, looking through my younger sister's telescope. Its just strong enough to allow you to see incredibly tiny moons lined up next to Jupiter, and just enough of Saturn's rings to understand why Galileo thought that planet had "ears". There have been many blessings in my family, and the expectation of more to come. In all, 2020 was a year that I would prefer to never live through again, but which has, in many ways, been good for me. I would like to say that I have great hopes for 2021, but I do not. I have a very modest hope that it will be better than the preceding year. (Dare I opine that it could hardly be worse? That seems like tempting fate.) But hopeful or not, I am glad to see the back of 2020 (good riddance) and please God, grant us (at the very least) normality in this new year. 

I'm posting this song today, for no reason in particular, saving that I like it. Its originally in Welsh, and it keeps its Welsh title (meaning lullaby), despite being sung in English. Nor are the words to this version of it anything like the Welsh original, which is merely a lullaby and not particularly Christmasy. This particular version of Suo Gân was originally from an Irish Tenors' CD, though I only heard it when a friend of mine recorded a long, 2 hour tape of mostly Irishy Christmas music for me:

Here is All Aright

 A Christmas Carol by G. K. Chesterton has always been one of my favourite Christmas poems. It is simple enough, but has some lovely imagery, and the lines "and all the flowers looked up and Him, and all the stars looked down." tugs on my heart as few other things do. I was absolutely delighted to discover that it has been put to music by a traditional Catholic composer. You should go to One Peter Five to read the lyrics, and find out a wee bit more about it. (very wee-- humble, the folks in the making of it seem to be. I gather that it is something of a labour of love, and that the singers are Catholic musicians volunteering to make beautiful things in a dark time. But there is not much actually about the making of this that I can find.) 

The Flight into Egypt.

 Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and it seems fitting to share this haunting old irish carol, An Teicheadh Go hEigipt (The Flight into Egypt) sung by Nóirín Ní Riain & the Monks of Glenstal Abbey. The translation is included in the description-- and yes, it inaccurately depicts the angel speaking to Mary, rather than St. Joseph, but the tune, and the imagery are very beautiful:

Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning

 I first came across this very American sounding carol last year, and liked it well. For some reason, it has been stuck in my head for the last couple weeks... Much to my surprise, it is not originally an American carol, but an English one, and it is slightly older than I would have pegged it: 1811, rather than mid 1800s. Hymns and Carols of Christmas has a write up on it, after the lyrics. 

On the Second Day of Christmas.....

 ..... I discovered a new song. I do not believe that this is meant specifically to be a Christmas song, though it is from Andrea Bocelli's Christmas concert in Assisi. It is composed by Riz Ortolani, an Italian film composer, and (judging from the notes provided by Senore Bocelli) this particular song appears to be from the movie Brother Sun and Sister Moon.* In spite of both of these facts, it seems a good song to share with everyone on this, the feast day of the first martyr, the great St. Stephen:

*A movie I have not seen, nor intend to see, understanding that it is gravely deficient from a Catholic point of view, and makes poor St. Francis out to be something along the lines of a hippie. Why exactly, people have to devalue the knightly heroism of St. Francis by turning him in to a flower child is beyond me, but it is one of those odd and niggling things that never seems to entirely go away.