OT Advent Calendar Day 22: The Friendly Beasts

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 tune is “The Friendly Beasts.”

Another favorite, this song is great for those with small children. “The Friendly Beasts” is also remarkably old,  going back to 12th century France and sometimes attributed to Pierre de Corbeil, Bishop of Sens. It was associated with the Feast of Fools, a sort of clerical saturnalia beginning in France in the early middle ages whereat various liturgical dramas were put on, in particular one called the Feast of the Ass—go ahead, make the joke; this article will still be here when you’re done laughing—for which this song may have been meant.

In its original form, the Latin “Orientis “Partibus” was only about the donkey, and included a refrain that translates to “Hail, Sir Donkey, hail!”

In 1920, Robert Davis wrote English lyrics—those in use today—for a nativity play.

Here’s a recording by Sufjan Stevens:

And another, by Tennessee Ernie Ford, with pictures from a book by Tomie Di Paola:

The lyric as we have it now reflects the belief, beginning in the Middle Ages, that at the moment of Jesus’s birth, various miraculous things happened, including animals being given the gift of speech. Thus, it was said, at midnight, just when Christmas Day begins, animals regain this ability, if only briefly.

Jesus our brother, strong and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around Him stood,
Jesus our brother, strong and good.

I, said the donkey shaggy and brown,
I carried His mother up hill and down
I carried her safely to Bethlehem town;
I, said the donkey shaggy and brown.

I, said the cow all white and red,
I gave Him my manger for His bed,
I gave Him my hay to pillow His head;
I, said the cow all white and red.

I, said the sheep with curly horn,
I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm,
He wore my coat on Christmas morn;
I, said the sheep with curly horn.

I, said the dove, from the rafters high,
Cooed Him to sleep that He should not cry.
We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I;
I, said the dove, from the rafters high.

And every beast, by some good spell,
In the stable dark was glad to tell
Of the gift he gave Emmanuel;
The gift he gave Emmanuel.