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.