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.
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.)
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
