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History, politics, and culture articles and forum discussions.

Christmas

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Enchanting, and sometimes strange, Christmas carols of yesteryear

Over the course of many Christmases I have listened to traditional Christmas Carols which have struck me as some of the most enchanting and haunting carols I have ever heard.  These aren’t songs that you’re likely to hear on the radio in December or playing in the mall while you do your Christmas shopping.  They’re just too old and unfamiliar to modern minds, but they open up a whole new world beyond the typical collection of songs you typically hear around Christmastime.

The best site for finding lyrics and meanings behind these songs is The Hymns and Carols of Christmas.  Going through the site, you can find background and historical context for all sorts of Christmas songs and learn about the minds and spiritual disposition of ages past.

One of my favorites, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, has its origins in Medieval times, perhaps as part of a “medieval mystery play“.  The topic of the carol appears to be the Incarnation of Christ, with the song being sung from the perspective of the Second Person of the Trinity, with “my true love” another name for mankind:

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance;

Chorus
Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love1

Another example of a great carol is Down in Yon Forest (origins uncertain, but perhaps an American-originated song):

Down in yon forest there stands a hall:
The bells of Paradise I heard them ring:
It’s covered all over with purple and pall
And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

In that hall there stands a bed:
The bells of Paradise I heard them ring:
It’s covered all over with scarlet so red:
And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

What’s interesting about that carol is that it doesn’t immediately seem like it relates to Christmas.  A clue in Verse Four indicates that the Virgin Mary knelt beside the bed, and finally in Verse Six, the final verse, we are told, “Over that bed the moon shines bright…Denoting our Saviour was born this night…”.

Then there’s the carol, The Old Year Now Away Is Fled, which dates to before the mid-seventeenth century.  This gives us a festive, yet distinctively Christian perspective of the merriment surrounding the Christmas season.  The final verse exudes the joy that must have been felt by those English celebrating the season in the Stuart period (and perhaps before):

Come, give’s more liquor when I do call,
I’ll drink to each one in this hall,
I hope that so loud I must not bawl,
So unto me lend an ear.
Good fortune to my master send,
And to our dame which is our friend,
Lord bless us all, and so I end:
God send us a happy new year!

And then from A Virgin Most Pure (c. 1743), a song which was based on a similar, earlier song, “In Bethlehem City“:

A virgin most pure, as the Prophets do tell,
Hath brought forth a Babe1, as it hath befell,
To be our Redeemer from death, hell and sin,
Which Adam?s transgression hath wrapt2 us all in.

Refrain
Rejoice and be merry, set sorrow aside;
Christ Jesus our Savior was born on this tide.

Perhaps one of the most enchanting of all of these traditional carols is The Cherry Tree Carol.  The song tells of a story in which Joseph and the Virgin Mary, while pregnant with Christ, traversed a lush cherry orchard.  Having an appetite for cherries at that moment, she asked her betrothed to pick her some but he refused in a most bitter way, telling her, “Let him pluck thee a cherry / That brought thee now with child.”  At that, a miracle occurs:

O then bespoke the baby
Within his mother’s womb
‘Bow down then the tallest tree
For my mother to have some.’

Then bowed down the highest tree,
Unto his mother’s hand.
Then she cried, ‘See, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.’

The strange origin of this carol may be in one of the apocryphal texts, such as the Protoevangelium of St. James or the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.  The song itself goes back in printed form at least to 1822.

For anyone interested in the exploring the history of Christmas carols, I highly suggest visiting The Hymns and Carols of Christmas. You’ll find a lot of great and interesting information on songs you may (or may not have) been singing since childhood.

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Charles Dickens’ Odd Christmas Game

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

I was looking for reaction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol from his contemporaries when I came upon a collection of the author’s other Christmas works.  The work, Household Words: Christmas Stories, 1851-1858, was a compilation of short stories and reflections that Dickens had authored over the years.  Among them are stories such as “What Christmas is as we Grow Older”, “An Idyl for Christmas In-doors”, and “The Orphan’s Dream of Christmas”.

The last story, however, is what caught my attention: “The Round Game of the Christmas Bowl”.  Intriguing.  What could be grander than reviving a forgotten Victorian game for Christmas of the present age?  Could this be a game of strategy, or a game of skill, or a game of chance?  Even if it was not as sophisticated as modern games, its richness in cultural tradition could give it a tremendous amount of value in our world today.  Or so might one think at first glance.

I read on:

The Pool of the game is a capacious circular bowl, or basin, made of ice. It is some sixty or seventy feet in circumference, and all round the rim there is stuck a hedge of holly- boughs, in full berry, interspersed with coloured lamps and silver bells.

This is a different type of game – and outdoor game – and it would need some planning to do.  I pictured this as a type of round, frozen pond – manmade or natural – surrounded by a short wall of lovely Yuletide decor.  It’s interesting that the decorations that are listed, such as garland, silver bells, and colored lighting, are all very popular Christmas decorations 175 years later.  As for the size of the pool, it would be challenging to find such a space, but it could be done.  But how do you actually play the game?

The next step that Mr. Dickens mentioned about how the pool is used gave me pause:

Everybody who is inspired by Christmas festivities comes to put into the Pool. He is to put in some thing which is his pride. In doing this he generally throws in something which is equally his trouble; and thus, by doing a generous act at Christmas, in throwing awav his pride, he at the same time gets rid of one of his worst troubles.

Hmm.  What’s all this about “putting” intangible items into the pool?  All of a sudden, Dickens lost me.  What started out as an actual game morphed into something metaphorical and dreamlike.  In other words, not an actual game.

Continuing the story, Dickens penned a long poem or song that can be recited (or sung?), possibly around the pool, which gave some clues about what it all means.

Here is the first verse:

Here is a Pool, all made of ice,
For a great round Christmas Game !
Its rim is set with green holly boughs,
And lamps of colour’d flame ;
With silver bells that tinkle and gingle
As each one bis offering comes to mingle, —
Whether ingot of gold, or a grey sea shingle.
Who comes first? — ‘Tis the King, I declare,
With the crown in his hand, and the frost in his hair !
Close to the Pool he brings his crown,
And tosses it o’er the holly !
So, away to the bottom goes all his pride,
And his royal melancholy ;
While gingle ! tinkle ! gingle !
How the sweet bells ring !
And round about the lighted Pool
We gambol, dance, and sing !

Scrooge gets a visit.

The image of all of this starts to get clearer.  At the top of the social ladder is the king, who casts his crown off his head, tosses it over the decorated wall of holly, and into the frozen pool.  The purpose of this is evidently to cast off what figuratively weighs him down in life and creates his “royal melancholy”.  The effect is joy, dancing, singing(!).  Amazing.  I had to look up a word in the last line, gambol, which means “to run and jump in a happy way”.

The verses then continue with other people throwing things, representative of the causes of strife in their lives, over the wall.  The Minister of State throws his “Puzzle made of weights and wheels” into the pool.  A bishop throws a bale representing his “pain and pride Of Church and State’s mis-marriage”.  A soldier does away with his necklace and sword, thereby giving up “blind obedience”.  A lawyer gives up his “bill of costs”, a merchant does away with his “bargain”, the scholar tosses his book, and even the lover gets rid of his mistress.  All this stuff is cast onto the icy surface.

A final verse from Dickens’ rhyme:

All these into the Pool
Are cast, with various smarts,
As valued Christmas Offerings,
Inspired with Christmas hearts !
While gingle ! tinkle ! gingle !
How Vie sweet bells ring !
And round about the lighted Pool
We gambol, dance, and sing !

As a metaphorical Christmas moral tale, I can understand and appreciate this.  But what I don’t get as much is how Dickens concludes the description of how the Round Game of the Christmas bowl ends:

The crowd of players at the Game, having joined hands in this concluding dance, now whirl round the Pool of Ice, gambolling and singing ; and they continue to do this, till the charm begins to work, and the heat of the Christmas hearts outside causes the Offering which each has thrown in, to warm to such a genial glow, that the heat thus collectively generated, melts the ice. The Pool gradually dissolves — the players of the game, one after another, sink down exhausted, and fall into a delightful reverie, ; while the melted Pool over flows, and floats every one of them to his home, as he seems to lie in a mother-of-pearl boat, with a branch of holly at the prow, and a coloured lamp amidst the green leaves and red berries. Each one, soon after, recovers his senses just enough to find himself lying comfortably in bed, and listening to tho waits !

Seriously – the game ends when the ice bowl melts due to all the good vibes and overflows, carrying each person home?  And then ends up in bed?  What is up with this story?

It’s a surreal ending for sure, and kind of sappy.  Dickens has truly unleashed his Romantic Age spirit without holding back.  Perhaps this is similar to how we’re supposed to understand Scrooge when waking up in his bed on Christmas morning: awestruck, dumbfounded, overcome with a happiness that might make him want to gambol.

But it’s still a little strange.  I’m not sure I’ll be asking family or friends to play this game come Christmastime.

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Victorian contributions to our modern Christmas traditions

Some time ago I began to understand and appreciate the impact that Victorian culture has had on certain holiday traditions.

The Victorians instilled an idea of familial happiness that was created through playing of quaint games and creating traditions that could be enjoyed in the middle and upper classes.  These turned out to be so successful that people in our own age continue these practices. In fact, we may have quite a few Christmas traditions that we can thank the Victorians for, such as the singing of Christmas carols (or the revival thereof), the giving of gifts, evergreen decorating, St. Nicholas (in popular culture), and the giving of Christmas cards.  In Britain in 1840, postcards were put up for sale for a penny, which made it easier for the tradition of Christmas card sending to be born.  In 1876 the price of a stamp was decreased to a half-penny.  In the United States, Louis Prang became known as the “Father of the American Christmas Card”, selling five million of them annually by 1881.

One of the most important figures in the Victorian revival of Christmas was Charles Dickens.  Prior to Dickens’ time, Christmas had become identified with alcoholic excess and led to the prohibition of the holiday by Puritans when they arrived on the shores of America.  The ban on Christmas continued well into the nineteenth century; the London Times did not even mention the holiday from 1790 to 1835 – forty five years without a Christmas mention!

The lukewarmness over the holiday during this time can be witnessed in what the Manchester Courier wrote in December of 1828.  Perhaps trying to kindle the fire of interest in Christmas after the publication of Christmas poems, it commented:

We hope that our author’s spirited attempt to revive the dormant enthusiasm with which our forefathers celebrated these ancient customs and festivals, which were older still than they, will not be altogether unsuccessful.  Mr Moxon’s publication would make a very suitable Christmas gift.

A Christmas Revival

The turning away of Christmas that marked this Georgian era (pre-Victorian) would not last forever, though, and one of the catalysts for change was the publication of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 1843.  Fifteen thousand copies were sold, and for the next several years he released new seasonal stories on an annual basis until 1848.  He made an effort to get his colleagues to join in this literary effort of celebrating Christmas, and the revival of Christmastime as a distinct season of the year was underway.  Dickens certainly must have tapped a vein in the English heart that desired this new sense of Christmas, for others soon joined in trying to capture the Christmas Spirit.  In 1846, Punch wrote, “The Literature of England promises, or rather threatens, to be inundated this year with a flood of Christmas Books.  Every little author is preparing a five-shilling volume in imitation of the Christmas Carol.”

Another Christmas tradition that goes back to the Victorians is the Christmas tree.  Although it traces its origins back to Germany, it was not until after its arrival in Windsor Castle in 1841 that it became popularized in England.  Queen Victoria wrote about her children who were “full of happy wonder at the German Christmas tree,” and in 1851, Dickens mentioned “that pretty Germany toy, a Christmas tree,” both references of which suggest the relative newness of this cherished ornament to England.  In 1848, a picture of the royal couple, celebrating Christmas with their children by the Christmas tree, was published in Britain and the United States.  A new cultural tradition was born.

So we do owe a lot of credit to the Victorians for helping establish Christmas as we know it today.  How many of us regularly participate in those traditions that were established during that long reign of Queen Victoria without even knowing where they came from?

What’s in a sugar plum, anyway?

And lastly, on a related note, a well-known food from the Victorian era is the sugarplum, which regularly makes a reappearance in our Christmastime consciousness when we hear Tchaikovsky’s Nut Cracker Suite.  Have you ever wondered what a sugarplum is?  It’s really quite simple: a mixture of chopped figs, apricots, nut meats, and dates, along with some brandy and powdered sugar.  Then, they are rolled into balls and coated with more powdered sugar.

Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.  Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

Note – sources for information in this article have been included where possible, but some of the sources have been lost and are not included.

WCF