Carol Time

The other day, North Stoke was asking readers to share their favourite carol. As I told her, I have a few. 'In the Bleak Midwinter' by Gustav Holst is one of them. Another is 'Good King Wenceslas', although the words to this are quite ridiculous. Where does one start? Who takes logs to a man who lives in a forest? I could go on, but I won't. It's not the words that capture my imagination but the tune. It's quite haunting, I think. 

You may know all this already, and my apologies if you do, but it was originally titled 'Tempus Adest Floridum' and it dates back to the 13th century. Sung in Latin, it's a Spring, rather than a Christmas carol. It came down to us through a Finnish collection of songs, published in 1582. A slightly less sacred but more carnal version appears in Carmina Burana.

The words were translated for the Oxford Book of Carols, in 1928. I love the way old Latin texts bring the past alive and so often reach out to the present when you translate them:

Spring has now unwrapped the flowers,
Day is fast reviving.
Life in all her growing powers,
Towards the light is striving.
Gone the iron touch of cold,
Winter time and frost time,
Seedlings working through the mould,
Now make up for lost time.

Herb and plant that, winter long,
Slumbered at their leisure,
Now bestirring, green and strong,
Find in growth their pleasure:
All the world with beauty fills,
Gold the green enhancing;
Flowers make glee among the hills
And set the meadows dancing.

Earth puts on her dress of glee;
Flowers and grasses hide her;
We go forth in charity–
Brothers all beside her;
For as man this glory sees
In the awakening season,
Reason learns the heart’s decrees,
And hearts are led by reason.

Through each wonder of fair days
God herself expresses
Beauty follows all her ways
As the world she blesses;
So as she renews the earth,
Artist without rival,
In the grace of glad new birth
We must seek revival.

Whatever we believe as individuals, I think there's something in there for everyone.

Happy Christmas!