1948-12-18 — Page 7

"I always feel it we didn't do something special on Christmas -Ere, the children would be so terribly disappointed { "

COMING OF

on

THY do children hang their Christmas stockings up

for a present Eve hoping from Santa Claus; and why do we decorate our homes with holly and mistletoe and Christmas trees?.

name Santa Claus is the Dulch for St Nicholas, n Greek Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, who lived about 300 A.D. He has been adopted as the patron saint of children and. curiously, he is also the patron salit of thieves.

Nicholas was a generous man; he was also shy, Ho, liked to give his money away, but he didn't like be ing thanked.

wishing There is a legend thai,

three to bring happiness to the, daughters of a poor man who had no money for marriage dowries, ho throw, lata one night, a purse gold: through the open window the man's house,

of

of

the

the

The gold fell into one of daughter's shoes as it lay by fireplace. From that time, when over gifts came from unknown sources, they were attributed to the kindly St Nicholas:

So Dutch children place their wooden clogs by the fire and Eng-

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1948.

CAROLS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

HE first Christmas carol She sat us an example which we ever since. Every was sung, probably in a have followed

Christmas whatever the quarrels low, intimate tone, by a and apprehensions of the year, wo humble working-class mother, meet and sing these rough, simple wife of a carpenter, in a stablo verses in the faith that the leaching In Bethlehem, 1948 years ago. of that monumental genius will con

tinue to guide the world, and that, Her voice was probably weak and in our time at least, there will indeed tired, and it is unlikely that, her be peace on earth, goodwill toward singing showed any particular men. In a word, wo sing carols; and

wo try to believe them. musiclanship.

But it had, we may be sure, that Ineffable aweetness born of completo sincerity,

When he wedded Sweet Mary

"In the land of Galllée. Joseph and Mary walked

Through an orchard good, Where were berries and cherries

As red as any blood", Mary asks Joseph to pluck her a cherry, Joseph replies:

The fate of Dives is quaintly grims "Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,

And come along with me, For you've a place provided in hall

To sit upon a serpent's knoo

Those who have heard Paul Nobeson sing bila innocent "and childiske Negro Bpirituala “; will appreciate the innocence of the early "Let him pluck thee a cherry that English carols, for there is much brought thee with child."

affinity between them,

In was not until 1200 years after the birth of Jesus that the first

And the babe Mary is carrying carol was sung, la the little Italian. For tho was bushing to rest a village of Grecia, near Assist Here says: "Bow down, then, the tallest child who had come to her by no St. Francis made the first Christmas tree for my mother to have some." These lines, also from "The Boar's morial means; a child who had creche and he and his community grown gradually in her virgin womb ang hymns in honour of the world's Head" make Father startling

Saviour.

comparison:

"The Boar ho is t sov'reign beast

And..nccept-

since that strange and terrifying visitant, months carlier," had halled her "blessed among women"."

And the know. She knew that this child was to become the greatest man in the history of the world; that he was to found a religion that would kulde millions of men and women through the centuries; that he was to conquer empires and generations, not by the force of hate but by the and far more subtle, powerful abiding force of love. How this was to be done she had no idea. She did not understand; she knew, And so she paid her simple homage to the coming of the Prince of Peace,

SANTA

fish children hang up their stockings on Christinas Eve to receive the gifts from Santa Claus.

In North America the children hong stockings at the foot of their person beds to be filled by à little who called Kriss Kringle

climbs chimney on Christmas down the Eve with toys and sweets for the good children and a birch for the naughty ones who do not say their prayers.

The custom of decorating with evergreens at Christinas gocs Lar back into history. The Greeks hung garlands of laurel and by her mid-winter their temples at the festivals to encourage the coming of spring.

The ancient Brilons regarded holly ns the fairy tree, and the Druids be- lieved mistletoe to be sacred, During the days of frost in December they

held

festival to celebrate ETCET the Sun God.

They decorated their shrines with holly and mistletoe-the symbols of light and growth.

The Druids believed that mistle- toe must be hung, for if it touched

CLAUS

Any the ground it lost its magic.

underneath the female who passed sacred spray Incurred the penalty who of being kissed by any man chose to do the kissing.

She received as many kisses na there were berries on the spray, and if a girl was not kissed she would mistletoe not be married until the was hung again.

In America great wreaths of holly are hung at the windows. An old legend says that if a house is decorated with prickly holly the husband will rule throughout the year, but if the helly is smooth the wife will be the master,

The Christmas tree originated in

Germany, and

and is safa to have

flourished from the eighth century. The Teutons believed in a myslic tree that determined the destinies of nen and whose branches bore gifts. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree

Until then it was England In almost 4 2844.

to

Prince Albert had a tree sent from Germany to Windsor Castle as surprise for the young Prince Ed- ward. After that, Christmas trees English became, essential to an Christmas.

"Francis and his brethren", wrote Mr Oliphant, "arranged these things into a visible representation of thie occurrences of the night at Bethle hem. The friars sang new canticles, which were listened to with all the eagerness of a people accustomed to wandering jongleurs and minstrels, and to

whom such songs were all food to be had for the Intellect and imagination."

Wynkyn de Warde in 1821 issued the first known collection of carola in England. Another book of seven carola was printed in London "in the Poultry" by Richard Kele between 1510 and 1552.

Early English carols-which t cluded "The Boar's Head" and "For Our Blessed Ladye's Sake Bring Us In Good Ale"-began to be popular. when Latin ceased to be universally understood. They reflected faithfully the spirit of the people.

a

In-

Like the love songs, war songs and pastoral songs of the period they had

frankness, bluntness and

of utterance, that only genuousness a later hypocrisy can find distasteful. They spoke of the Holy Family in direct and homely terms; terms all the more moving and reverent. because of their naked sincerity,

Our cars are

startled. perhaps today by such naive expressions as secur in Jeremy Taylor's "Hymn for Christmas Day."

"Where is this blessed Babe

That hath made.

All the world so full of joy

And expectation;

That glorious Boy

That crowns ench, nation

wreath .o! With a triumphant blessedness?"

Or by the "Cherry Tree Carol"; "Joseph was an old man,

And an old man was http>

So

A

able At ov'ry feast.

might this Lord, be to greatest and

lcast."

Many of the old verses are full of a crude quaint pathos:

"My mother dear, amend your

cheer, And now be stilt.

Thus for to lie it soothly is

My Father's will.

Derision, great passion,

Infinitely,

As it is found, many a wound.

Suffer shall I

On Calvary that is so high.

There shall 1'be

Man to restore. nailed full sore

Upon a tree."

The rigour of the first Christmas night is sharply expressed in, South- well's verso:

A

- ཏི

carol has been defined as "a religious seasonal sood of. Joyful character, in the vernacular, and sung by the common people. In the Middle Ages carols were an essential part of the daily life.

Thus we are told that Richard Till, a London grocer, ro corded in his com-

"Now thrice welcome Christmas Which brings us good cheer, Mince 'ples and plum porridge,

Good ale and strong beer;

With plz, goose and capon

The best that can be,

So well doth the weather.

Änd our stomachs agree”.

They

Ilved by this Uberal philosophy that, since all good things cannot have come from God, one too much of a good thing."

The pures

purest, and tenderest carola, then, come from modloval times. They are becoming very popular today. among muslelane, and many modern compopers, such as: „Vaughan Williams, Bax, and Holst have made arrangements, of the old airs reset the original words:

The Tudor ago was the great age mon-place book of carol singing as of nearly every- between 1500 and thing else. The Puritans discourage 1530 mathematical it, and after the seventeenth century It never seems to have recovered tables, dates of its full strength and glory. Strangely fairs, musical pre- enough some of the best and best- scriptions,

dates beloved modern carols are by com- children's paratively obscure poets and com- births, cookery ro tipes, notes on the posers, breaking of horses

of hla

and the browing of beer and. the words and music of numerous Christmas carols.

This book was found lodged behind a bookcase in a private house in 1850.

Tho

"carol" word

originally implied. dancing-"I saw her danco BO Comely, carol and sing so sweetly, "wrote Chaucer-and the early carola were danced and sung, chiefly in the open air.

Many carols survived from my stery and miracle plays of the fifteenth century. Some were kept alive on broadsheets and broadsides, some pasted on orally from genera- tien to generation. The most poignant. and appealing carols of all are the "lullabies" or cradle songs,-

Is

The brilliant exception, of course, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," written by Charles Wesley and composed by, Mendelssohn. But thei majority of them are not by names, "mighty in men's mouths."

Who, for instance, WDS "Mrs Alexander," who wrote one of the, most famous of ulf carols, "Once in Royal David's City," or HL J Gauntlett, who composed the music?

was

eighteenth

HOW

"Christians," Awako" for example, was the work of two Lancashire men, John Byrom, an century poet, and John Wainwright, one time organist of the Manchester sow the Church, Collegiate

"While Shepherds Cathedral. Watched"

written by the Ca eighteenth century versifier, Nahum Tate, but the tune dates from 1592. Two of the most beautiful are the

kind of The

carollers rustic seventeenth century German "Schlaf, meln Kindelein," and the sixteenth immortalised by Thomas Hardy la century English "Lulla la lullo, my. "Under the Greenwood Tree" LIO In homely manger trembling lies, sweet, little, what meanest thou to very rare in these days of gramo

Alas! à piteous sight."

phones and broadcasting. cry?"

"Behold a silly, tender babe,

In freezing winter night;

Some of them even had a certain humour:

"Dives sent out his merry men

To whip poor Lazarus away.

They had no power to strike, ».

stroke But Gung their whips away."

<

7

Still, the tunes and the words are -The most robust and boisterous there in all their, fragrant simplicity are the Boar's Head group and the, to refresh our hearts. They form an lanumerable wassalla. Our ancestors unbreakable, link with that tem found nothing irreverent in praising pestuous winter night when the God through the pleasures of eating Three Kings brought the wealth and drinking and the rough sports the world to the Child whore only of the people. "Poor Robin's Al- wealth. was his meck-spirit; when manack" for 1695 gives the follow- the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. ing Christmas verse:

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