Carollers and Wind in the Willows

"Badger by C. E. Swan
(Meles taxus syn. Meles meles)"
From: The wild beasts of the world (1909)
by Frank Finn
via Wikimedia Commons

The Wind in the Willows first appeared in print in 1908. It's a beloved children's classic since then — I suspect that a plot summary isn't needed! Even aside from the books with Ernest H. Shephard's (or Arthur Rackham's, or...) illustrations, its legacy lives on in other ways.

My family watched the 1980s British stop motion animated series on Canadian television in the 1990s, and still sometimes hum the theme song from memory.

Mouse knitting
From: Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes (1917)
by Beatrix Potter
via Wikimedia Commons

The Wind in the Willows's Christmas passages, atmospheric and pleasingly English, have also inspired composer Audrey Snyder to arrange a musical setting of the Carol. It is sung by choirs at Christmas under the title "Joy on Christmas Morning." (For example: [YouTube].)

***

It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little fieldmice stood in a semicircle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat-sleeves a good deal. As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried the lantern was just saying, 'Now then, one, two, three!' and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held by frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.

    CAROL

Villagers all, this frosty tide,

Let your doors swing open wide,

Though wind may follow, and snow beside,

Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;

Joy shall be yours in the morning! 

 

Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,

Blowing fingers and stamping feet,

Come from far away you to greet

—You by the fire and we in the street—

Bidding you joy in the morning! 

 

For ere one half of the night was gone,

Sudden a star has led us on,

Raining bliss and benison

—Bliss to-morrow and more anon,

Joy for every morning! 

 

Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow—

Saw the star o'er a stable low;

Mary she might not further go—

Welcome thatch, and litter below!

Joy was hers in the morning! 

 

And then they heard the angels tell

'Who were the first to cry NOWELL?

Animals all, as it befell,

In the stable where they did dwell!

Joy shall be theirs in the morning!'

"Belgian winter landscape" (19th century)
by Louis-Pierre Verwee
via Wikimedia Commons

 

The voices ceased, the singers, bashful but smiling, exchanged sidelong glances, and silence succeeded—but for a moment only. Then, from up above and far away, down the tunnel they had so lately travelled was borne to their ears in a faint musical hum the sound of distant bells ringing a joyful and clangorous peal.  

Source: The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame [Project Gutenberg Australia]

A 15th-Century Storke Carol

"The Storke" is as far as I know not well known in Canada, the United States, or indeed in the United Kingdom where it was written in the 15th century.

But it was set to music by the Canadian conductor Ernest MacMillan around 1927. I heard it in a recording from the late 1990s, by the Canadian choral group Elmer Iseler Singers in their album Noël: Early Canadian Christmas Music / Music canadienne d'antan pour Noël.

MacMillan had been captured in Germany during World War I, as he was visiting Bayreuth when the war broke out, and interned in Ruhleben. He would only return home in 1919.

"De arte venandi cum avibus"
13th cent. Creator unknown.
via Wikimedia Commons

According to Clifford Ford's liner notes for the album, MacMillan's interest in an old poem reflected a general "revival of English folk songs" during the first half of the 20th century. (The earliest edition of "The Storke" as a poem I found on Google Books was from ~1914.) Ford adds, referring also to a song "I Sing of a Maiden,"

The original tunes for these carols have not survived, but MacMillan's vocal lines, sensitive accompaniments, and metrical shifts to accommodate textual accents, produce two charming settings reminiscent of Vaughan Williams.

In the UK, Donald Swann, who himself had an adventurous life, picked up the poem a generation later and set it to music in Sing Round the Year (1968).

Both settings can be found on YouTube.

***

The Storke

1. The storke shee rose on Christmas-eve,
And sayed unto her brood,
I nowe must fare to Bethleem
To view the Sonne of God.

2. Shee gave to ache his dole of mete,
She stowed them fayrlie in,
And farre shee flew And fast she flew,
And came to Bethleem.

3. Nowe where is He of David, line?
She askd at house and halle.
He is not here, They spake hardlye,
But in the Maungier stalle.

4. Shee found hym in the maungier stalle.
With that most Holye Babye,
The gentyle storke shee wept to see
The Lord so rudelye layde.

5. Then from her pauntynge brest shee pluckd
The fethers whyte and warm;
Shee strawed them in the Maungier bed
To kepe the Lord from harm.

6. Nowe blessed bee the gentle storke
For evermore, Quothe Hee,
For that shee saw my sadde estate
And showed such Pytye.

(7. Full welkum shall shee ever bee
In hamlet and in halle,
And hight henceforth The blessed Byrd,
And friend of Babyes alle.)

"Stork (detail of a tapestry)." 1550s.
Artist unknown - City of Brussels.
via Wikimedia Commons