Folk at Christmas

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The music and words of traditional folk carols often include unusual imagery and inventive re-interpretations of advent and the festive season, and make you re-think your perspective on Christmas. This is something I'm trying to do, particularly in terms of how I relate to Christmas in the light of the quaker heritage towards festivals.

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Oxford's Bodleian Library has a brilliant online catalogue of Broadside Ballads (who have put the original manuscripts online - see links below!), and a quick browse highlights a large number of often overlooked seasonal songs that appear to have lost out to the mainstream dominance of popular carols by the established church. The Mellstock Band (with the Oxford Waits) have a super CD of broadside songs, called 'Hey for Christmas'

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Songs with a social conscience, encouraging service to the poor, or commenting on prevailing social unrest and conflict were sung by the anonymous majority, in public, door to door, in homes, in pubs or maybe even in churches by the West Gallery Quires. These songs, played on folk instruments persisted into the twentieth century, resisted for as long as possible the sandardising style of the church organ. For example, 'Remember the Poor', collected in Yorkshire by Frank Kidson, has a prescient last verse, being both highly spiritual but also grounded in a lived reality:

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"The time it will come when our Saviour on earth

And the world will agree with one voice

All nations unite to salute the blest morn

And the whole of the world will rejoice

When grim death is deprived of its hard killing sting

And the grave rules triumphant no more

Saints, angels and men hallelujahs will sing

And the rich must lie down with the poor."

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Another great example is the song 'Christmas in 1859', which relates to industrial action taken by London masons, which led to a major strike and lock-out. The strikers wanted a reduced working day, while the owners wouldn't employ anyone who hadn't signed 'the declaration' - a promise not to join a trade union. The dispute lasted 6 months. The broadside has some great lyrics, including:

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"All you men that's on the strike, may you

never, boys, be undone

And before next Monday night, be all Lord

Mayors of London

May the masters cut their stick, I don't see

why they shouldn't

Be compelled to eat a brick, and the devil a bit

of pudding"

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A late eighteenth century song, called 'The Christmas Holidays, or Stuff Your Guts' (the manuscript is unfortunately difficult to read), acknowledges and embraces the excesses of Christmas, and makes you think that perhaps little has changed in the last 200 years! The song ends:

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"To stuff your guts is in my song, on either

boil'd or roast

I hope you will not think me wrong if I give

you a toast

Content to every tradesman hare, and

peasant in their huts

A lasting peace, and trade increase, then we

may stuff our guts."

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Check out 'Joseph was an Old Man' (also called The Cherry Tree Carol) - involving the unborn Jesus speaking and performing miracles to a sceptical (and old) Joseph, who had already married Mary.

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Another interesting carol is called 'The Carnal and the Crane' (involving an ace dialogue between 2 birds and the outwitting of King Herod)

A great collection of midwinter music including both Christian and Pagan carols, humorous and devotional songs as well as dance tunes, is in fact called 'The Carnal and the Crane' by the New Scorpion Band



I also like listening to, and pondering on the message of 'Dives & Lazarus', with its stark imagery and message to care for the poor. It was a very popular traditional tune (made even more popular by Vaughan-Williams) and song that would be sung by carol singers hoping to make a little money during the lean winter times.

Labourers would also try other means to make (beg for) money at Christmas – one of which is Morris Dancing. I shall be helping keep the Christmas Morris Tradition alive in my local area this year by dancing on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day (to end my brilliant first season of morris dancing). There is a quaker connection here folks as I will be dancing on the Iron Bridge, in Ironbridge in Shropshire, constructed in 1779 by the Quaker Abraham Darby III. I'll do a post about it in the New Year.