Episode 44: The Friendly Beasts

Dive into the rich history of the timeless Christmas carol, "The Friendly Beasts," with Gina on the latest episode of "A Tisket-Tasket" podcast. Unwrapping the festive traditions dating back to 12th-century France, Gina shares insights from Henry Copley Green's 1931 article, exploring the carol's medieval roots and the evolution of its melody. Discover the modern English lyrics penned by Robert Davis and enjoy audio recordings of the original Latin hymn and Burl Ives' iconic rendition. Follow Gina's enchanting journey through time as she unravels the mysteries behind this cherished carol. 🎄🎶 #ChristmasCarols #HolidayTraditions #FriendlyBeastsHistory #PodcastExploration #MedievalCarols #BurlIvesMelody

Transcript

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of "A Tisket-Tasket" podcast. I'm your host, Gina. Now, normally, I take a look into the enchanting and sometimes downright weird world of nursery rhymes. But for the month of December, I have been exploring some festive nursery rhymes and songs. Today, I am delving into one of the oldest Christmas songs still sung today, which is "The Friendly Beasts." Grab a hot drink, snuggle up, and get ready to join me.

As I explore this festive carol.

"The Friendly Beasts" date back to 12th-century France, if you can believe it. It's still a widely known English carol today, although I wasn't familiar with it until I started my research. I'd love to hear your experience with it, so please reach out to me at info@atisket-tasketpodcast.com and let me know some of your holiday memories with it. "The Friendly Beasts" may also be known as the song of the ass, that donkey carol, the animal carol, and the gift of the animals. It is a song about the gifts that a donkey, cow, sheep, camel, and dove give to Jesus at his birth.

I'm not a religious researcher, and again, I did mention that I think in the 12 days of Christmas. So, there is a lot of really awesome research out there that really delves into the nativity. So, if that is your jam, I encourage you to email me or let me know.

And I'd be happy to give you some references, but I was really more interested in the carols or the nursery rhymes. But when I was doing some preliminary research, I did find a very interesting article out of the University of Chicago Press called "The Song of the Ass," and it was written by Henry Copley Green in 1931.

Now, this article talks about these ancient traditions of the festival of the ass or the song of the ass.

And I'm going to go ahead and read just the first part for you. But it says the pages here. I reproduced it from the unpublished Beauvais M.S. at the British Museum suggest certain observations on the texts of the medieval song of the ass. Unknown variations of its melody in customs associated with it, especially at In on medieval music. To represent the Virgin's flight into Egypt.

A strange holiday was celebrated yearly in many towns during the Middle Ages. The following accounts of the celebrations are found in a letter from December 18th, 1697, from a Canon in Beauvais 40 Cent Hilarie two M day friend Costal, assistant librarian of the Bibliotech Magdalene in Paris. On the first day after the octave of the three Kings, they chose a beautiful young girl, put a child in her hands, and mounted her on an ass, which they led in procession from the cathedral church to the church of St. Stephen. Placing the ass in his lovely burden in the sanctuary there on the gospel side. They sang a solemn mass whose prose of the ass is in Lubeck.

And then they produced the lyrics. It says, here are the words of the famous prose of the ass, as it was sung at the cathedral of Boothbay. And it's actually different than the lyrics that I am going to read here in a moment of the English version. So if you are interested, let me know or check on my reference page on my blog, and I'll produce them there, but they are slightly different, and it really shows the solemnness of the mass versus its English counterpart, which is a little bit more lighthearted. But in any case, Copley continues to say that these words must've been sung in the cathedral of Beauvais early in the 13th century. As for the story of the pretty girl riding an ass into the church and up beside the altar, it has been told and retold, quoted and re-quoted, hey there too. In tracing those quotations down, the student eventually arrived at two conch or rather his later editors.

As we can see here, Copley talks about how this song. There are historical records that this type of mass and this display was used all the way recorded back to the 17th century. And there is historical evidence that this is from the 13th century.

Later he says that the 12th and 13th-century festival of the ass has been so energetically discussed that only a few points remain to be emphasized in relation to the manuscript. Men have argued back and forth as to whether the ass actually went into churches.

Copley goes on to talk about the tune and how it was actually sung in two different melodies.

He said it's an 1806 million copied Labrador day four, the key of G major. And on April 29th, 1847, Felix Komal had the oriented product of bus still in G major singing at the College Style Paris before an audience of perhaps a thousand people who were astonished and delighted by the medieval song, which they had never heard before. He led this song in 1849 at the St. Chevelle. And again at St. Eustis in 1875, before 4,000 people. It sounds like that's the melody we know today that we then kind of translated into the English carol came from this change in the 19th century.

In any case, if you'd like to read more in-depth about this festival in the song, I'll go ahead and list this reference on my blog again. It's called "The Song of the Ass" by Henry Copley Green published in 1931. And it goes really in-depth on where this carol came from its history and kind of the changes through the year and how rural tradition has worked. Maybe some of the traditions of mass. But let's go ahead and talk about how this nursery rhyme made it from the 13th century till now.

The modern English lyrics were written by Robert Davis, 1881 to 1950. In the 1920s. And it first appeared in "The Coming of the Prince of Peace," a nativity play with ancient Christmas carols. Arranged by William Sloane Coffin, Helen A. in Clarence Dickinson. Published by the H.W. Gray Company. The lyrics are.

"Jesus, our brother strong and good, was humbly born in a stable road. And the friendly beasts around him stood. Jesus, our brother strong and good. I said the donkey, shaggy and brown, I carried his mother uphill in down. I carried her safely to Bethlehem town. I said the donkey shaggy and brown. I said the cow, all white and red. I gave him my manger for his bed. I gave him my hay to pillow his head. I said the cow, all white and red. I set the sheep with curly horn. I gave him my wool for his blankets warm. He wore my coat on Christmas Morn. I said the sheep with curly horn. I set the dove from rafters high. Queued him to sleep that he should not cry. We queued him to sleep. My mate and I, I said the dove from the rafters high. And every beast by some good spell. And the stable dark was glad to tell. Oh, the gift he gave Emmanuel the gift he gave to Emmanuel.

No originally. The melody of the song was set to the Latin hymn "Orientis Partibus," which means from the east. The composer of this hymn was said to be PRD corporeal, Bishop of Sense. It was said to be a popular tune sung at the festival of circumcision during the epiphany. And this goes back to the 12 days of Christmas on January 1st.

Discipleship Ministries, part of the United Methodist church group, wrote an amazing 2013 blog. Going further in-depth about this carol. The author, unknown, states by the 13th century, the melody was sung during the fifth of de. Leon festival of the Darcie. And the focus of which was the flight into Egypt by the holy family. During the mass for this festival, a donkey was often led or ridden into the church. They go on to quote ethnomusicologists Archibald Jacob who described the scene. A young woman holding a child in her arms and seated upon an ass was led in procession through the streets of the town. And finally into the principal church where mass was celebrated. Well, the ass with this burden stood beside the high altar. During the service, a hymn written in a mixture of medieval Latin and old French was sung. Of which the first lines were Orientis Partibus, to which of the present melody was sung. Again, I don't know, Latin or old French.

I do apologize if I mispronounced this. But the donkey apparently has a big role in the epiphany, and I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't a gift in the 12 days of Christmas. And if anyone knows why, or if there are any ethnomusicologists or religious study people out there and they know why, let me know.

In any case, I have two audio recordings to share with you today. The first is the original Latin hymn recorded in 1967 by the Purcell Concert of Voices on their album "Now We Make Merry," which is a collection of old hymns. Let's go ahead and listen to it now.

[Audio recording]

Whenever I listen to anything in Latin, it immediately seems more somber and worshipful, and this hymn was likely more reverent than its English counterpart. Speaking of this, Carol has been recorded by a number of famous artists, most notably by Burl Ives in 1952 by Decca Records. We will listen to that in just a minute, but there are other notable versions, including Peter, Paul, and Mary, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, and Garth Brooks.

And I believe Garth Brooks even won a music award or his album went platinum for his particular Christmas album. I think that was in the early nineties. But in any case, let's go ahead and listen to Burl Ives' version now.

[Audio recording]

Wonderful, right? For me, Ives is the voice of Christmas carols. I can't help but think of Sam, the snowman. From the 1964 Claymation film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, all of his songs for me. That's the memory I have for all of these Christmas carols. And for me, when I hear his voice, I think of Christmas carols. Well, folks, there, we have it, the history of one of the oldest Christmas carols we still sing today. I hope you found this information enlightening, and I hope you all have a festive and happy holiday. And stay tuned next week.

We're all covered another festive carol. But for now, this is your host, Gina, signing off after exploring yet another weird history of a nursery