THE more I study the Bible, and the more I talk to people about it, the more I am convinced that the easiest way to come to faith is through stories. Our first encounters with faith are likely to be through stories — the Christmas story most of all. Believer and atheist alike sense the universal power of the nativity.
In the wider world, beyond the huddles of the faithful, there is something more powerful even than reading those stories, and that is singing them. Carols have a special magic; a power to touch believers and non-believers alike with their simplicity; the sometimes sublime fusion of words and notes; the way they pull us out of middle-aged apathy back into childhood. Yet what defines them most clearly is their storytelling.
The tradition of carol-singing at Christmas is not a fossilised process. New carols go on being written, because there is always more to say about the incarnation. And tastes change, though slowly, and conservatively. Forest Green, for example, is still the standard tune for “O little town of Bethlehem” in the UK, despite the loveliness of an alternative tune, Wengen. Woe betide any well-meaning cleric who tries to broaden a congregation’s experience by selecting that other tune (I speak from experience).
This is not the place to write a history of carols; and, even if it were, I would be the wrong person to tackle it. My musical understanding is rudimentary — not that this stops me from having strong opinions. But this is a good moment to look at how carols do their work in us; so I have chosen two examples. The first is a medieval carol, composed in Latin (it has medieval English lyrics, too). I have provided a metrical translation in modern English.
The other is from the 19th century, its words written in English by Walter de la Mare: and I doubt that many readers will have heard of it, never mind sung it. Its tune in the old Oxford Book of Carols is rather pedestrian, but it feels like a good fit for the tune Newbury (metre: 76 76).
When Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott published The New Oxford Book of Carols in 1992, their declared aim was to make known the “glorious diversity” of carols which had given way to a restricted repertoire of favourite numbers. Angelus ad Virginem would count among that restricted number; for it has always been popular. Its bright tune incarnates its cheerful message. “A Ballad of Christmas”, on the other hand, is not included. Yet it is certainly a carol according to their criteria: its content is narrative, with elements verging on the contemplative, and its spirit is simple, as is its verse form.
How can I properly reflect on these carols, when I admit to being no musical proficient? My answer is simple, and I thank Keyte and Parrott for the reminder: “however indissoluble text and tune have become, it is the words that are the carol.” Words matter, and the wise singer, choir, or musical director gives them their full due.
THE famous carol is brilliant in its confidence. It makes the heart sing, as well as the voice. The unknown one has a more sombre take on Christmas, and yet it, too, pierces the mystery of the nativity. From Angelus ad Virginem, which is still heard and sung everywhere at Christmas, I want to highlight one mystical insight: that the infant Christ is born ready to do battle (verse 4), already shouldering the cross. That is his weapon — his only weapon — against his foes.
Many composers have set Angelus ad Virginem, but, for me, a very recent setting that stands out is Matthew Martin’s (which was commissioned for the 2022 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge): it evokes the switches of mood and meaning, from light to darkness and back again, as the composer imagines the music “flying around and bouncing off walls and stained glass” while the story unfolds.
Now for the “Ballad of Christmas”. It is labelled, in the old Oxford Book of Carols, “The Three Traitors” (no. 163), although the three are not television traitors, but Bible-traitors. I was astonished by that title. Then I was touched by the carol’s mingling of pity and perception. Herod has his place by right, as the arch-villain of the nativity, a tyrant and murderer. His mantle is soaked with blood, which shines as if freshly spilled in a perpetual present. He rides with two companions, Pilate and Judas. At first, they seem out of place in a “ballad of Christmas”.
But the poet reveals how all three traitors are indispensable in God’s scheme of salvation. Had Pilate not been who he was, and done what he did, Jesus could not have been crucified. The poet even encourages empathy, by highlighting Pilate’s being “far from home” when he stepped on to history’s stage. Similarly, without Judas’s kiss, the Son of Man might not have been delivered into the hands of sinners (Mark 14.41). Without the handing over, and the crucifixion, there might be no redemption.
Title page of “A Ballad of Christmas”
The journey of Herod, Judas, and Pilate towards divine forgiveness is ages long; for blood-guilt ties them to the earth, and only God can deliver them. Judas the betrayer draws our keenest attention, perhaps because his role as the friend-turned-traitor reminds us of ourselves. Yet we find him clothed in white, as if he belongs already to the Kingdom of heaven. White is a colour easily over-dyed, but then impossible to restore to its original state.
So, there is an exquisite paradox in his being “Dyed in the Mercy of his God”; for no man-made dye can do what God’s mercy does. Only a sacred miracle can restore Judas, and us, to a forgiven state; but (returning for a moment to Angelus ad Virginem), that miracle is accomplished by the Babe of Bethlehem, who, from his first moment as a living, breathing human being, shouldered the cross. And all so that we — like those three traitors — may have the Babe of Bethlehem smile on us, take our hand, and lead us home.
On one level, these two carols — one famous, the other obscure — look like a random pairing, telling disconnected stories. But they are only two different sentences in the universal story of God’s love for humankind. They draw together the widest possible range of human situations and reactions: from one who is “full of grace” (and, in the eyes of many Christians, “immaculate”, born without sin), to a trio of the grace-less and sin-full: a truth-denier, a fence-sitter, a betrayer.
In between these extremes of character, our Christmas may be an encounter with angels coming upon the midnight clear, or inhabitants of that little town of Bethlehem, or even cattle lowing as the baby awakes. No single carol can tell the whole story, because the whole story is everything that was, and is: and it is still being written.
Angelus ad Virginem
Came the angel Gabriel
In secret to a chamber.
At the Virgin’s fear he called
“Hail,” and offered comfort:
“Hail Mary, Queen of virgins all,
You shall conceive and bear a son,
of Eve and Adam’s line to be the Saviour:
Lord of all heav’n and earth,
Gate of pearl and cure for sin,
A virgin you remain.”
“How shall I conceive a child
Who have not known a husband?
How could I betray my word
With true heart and mind given?”
“The Holy Spirit will descend,
Will now the costly grace bestow:
Fear not, but wonder and rejoice in safety.
God’s power shall preserve
that innocence which clothes you,
Now and eternally.”
Mary, wrapt in dignity,
Responded to the angel,
“I a lowly handmaid am,
Of the Almighty Father.
You are the heav’nly messenger,
Party to this divine secret:
in me the incarnation is accomplished;
Here am I, God’s handmaid:
his holy dispensation
all-eager to obey.
Suddenly as Gabriel
departed, came new power,
quickening the Virgin’s womb,
a babe supersubstantial.
Nine months protected in her womb,
Safe in the tower of ivory;
Then came he forth to battle against evil;
a weapon true he bore;
the Cross upon his shoulder,
To crush his deadly foe.
Hail O Mother of our Lord!
Shalom you have recovered
for us and the heav’nly host
when you gave birth to Jesus.
Mary, pray intercede for us:
to make your Son’s forgiveness ours,
Counting our sins and faults no more against us,
but off’ring us your help —
our earthly exile over —
to win eternal life.
A Ballad of Christmas
It was about the deep of night,
And still was earth and sky,
When ’neath the moonlight dazzling bright,
Three ghosts came riding by.
Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,
Lie kingdoms for them all:
I wot their steeds trod wearily —
The journey was not small.
By rock and desert, sand and stream,
They footsore late did go:
Now, like a sweet and blessèd dream,
Their path was deep with snow.
Shining like hoarfrost, rode they on,
Three ghosts in earth’s array:
It was about the hour when wan
Night turns at hint of day.
Oh, but their hearts with woe distraught
Hailed not the wane of night,
Only for Jesu still they sought
To wash them clean and white.
For bloody was each hand, and dark
With death each orbless eye —
It was three Traitors mute and stark
Came riding silent by.
Silver their raiment and their spurs,
And silver-shod their feet,
And silver-pale each face that stares
Into the moonlight sweet.
And he upon the left that rode
Was Pilate, Prince of Rome,
Whose journey once lay far abroad,
And now was nearing home.
And he upon the right that rode,
Herod of Salem sate,
Whose mantle dipped in children’s blood
Shone clear as Heaven’s gate.
And he these twain betwixt that rode
Was clad as white as wool,
Dyed in the Mercy of his God
White was he crown to sole.
Throned amid a myriad Saints in bliss
Rise shall the Babe of Heaven
To shine on these three ghosts, I wis,
Smit thro’ with sorrows seven.
Babe of the Blessèd Trinity
Shall smile their steeds to see:
Herod and Pilate riding by,
And Judas one of three.
Walter de la Mare