OT Advent Calendar Day 20: Two Catalan Christmas Songs
Advent has always been my favorite time of year. Not only does it lead up to the festival of Christmas, but my birthday falls right around half way through. What’s more, I grew up in snowy Central New York—that’s the barren hinterlands of Upstate, for those in the city so nice they named it twice—and if I didn’t get a White Christmas, the Great Lakes were good for a storm around my birthday so there’d at least be a good beginning to the winter.
Advent is far from an untouched subject around these parts, so I’m clearly not alone.
Your OT Advent Calendar this year will be musical. We’ll talk about diamond-in-the-rough traditional tunes just waiting for renewed popularity, crimes against Christmas, the silly songs and the songs that have become modern traditions. We’ll also talk about the notion of true Christmas Carols, those which address the twelve days festival beginning on Christmas itself, including not just the one day-counting song but another.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Today’s tunes are both from the region of Catalonia in Spain: “Ríu Ríu Chíu” and “Caga Tió.”
Today’s songs are about a kingfisher and a wolf and a carefully tended defecating log.
I’ll let you digest that for a moment.
Both songs are related to the Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception—December 8th, which celebrates the conception of the Virgin Mary without the stain of original sin—though the former does so more directly for which, given the lyrics of the two, we should be infinitely thankful.
“Ríu Ríu Chíu” dates back to the middle of the 16th century, if not a little before.
The lyric is a Villancico, a rustic poetic and musical form popular from the 15th to 18th centuries in Spain and her possessions. In the lyric a kingfisher—God—whose call is, “Ríu ríu chíu!” defends a lamb—the Virgin Mary, stick with me on this one—from a wolf—Sin.
This framing metaphor in place, the chorus reminds us that the kingfisher, a fiercely territorial bird, chased off the wolf and protected the lamb.
The first verse treats of the Immaculate Conception directly, while the second and third are about Christ and the promise of Christmas.
And now for the, uh, other one. We need to preface this with a brief primer on Catalan culture.See, in Catalonia they are really into poop.
There’s a folk saying there that goes: “Menjar be I cagar fort, I no tingues por de la mort” which roughly translates as “If one eats well and shits well, one need not fear death.” Then there’s the caganer, a figurine featured in many a Catalan nativity scene which depicts a person in the act of pooping. All of this is to say that in the upper righthand corner of Spain there’s a great celebration of number two.
There are the traditional peasant caganers, there are fictional and cultural character caganers and there are caganers of world leaders and celebrities. It’s considered something of an honor.\
But I digress. “Caga Tió” is not about a caganer, but rather a log to be fed and warmed by children so that it may shit gifts on Christmas morning.
You look quizzical. Did I stutter? I submit to you that I did not.
Shit, tió,
almonds and nougats,
do not shit herrings,
that are too salty,
shit nougats
that taste better.
Shit, tió,
almonds and nougats,
and if you don’t want to shit
I will hit you with a stick!
Shit, tió!
Hey, it’s a children’s song! A Christmas song!
Apparently, Tió’s alimentary canal has a transformative effect on his diet.
