On the Tenth Day of Christmas ...

[eliskimo]

It's the tenth day of Christmas, but I'm not sure I could muster much excitement about ten lords a-leaping if they showed up on my doorstep (mind you, it's a rather small doorstep, and I don't think they'd fit anyway ). I'm sick. I have been for a week and I'm tired of it. I forced myself to down a cup of boiled ginger and honey this morning and

Comments

[forest_lady]

A youth group I headed back in the day did a Nativity pageant based on "T'was in the moon" - it was good. Toronto slum-kids of a number of ethnicities.

Huron Carol

[camillofan]

Your post made me Google "Huron Carol," a piece I only came to know two years ago when my choral society sang an arrangement of it in our December concert. Our director seemed to love it for its political correctness, but the fellow on this interesting page, though he claims a sentimental fondness for the song, agrees with you that there's something patronizing and cringeworthy about Middleton's version of the lyric (and does he also imply that there's something inauthentic about the term "Gitchi Manitou"?). At the end of his comments appears what he identifies as a literal translation of St. Jean de Brébeuf's original text.

Re: Huron Carol

[eliskimo]

It is interesting. However, I think Teondecheron's literal translation is a bit clunky. Compare his:

Have courage, you who are humans;
Jesus, he is born
Behold, the spirit, who had us as prisoners, has fled
Do not listen to it, as it corrupts the spirits of our minds
Jesus, he is born
They are spirits, sky people, coming with a message for us
They are coming to say, "Be on top of life [Rejoice]"
Marie, she has just given birth. Rejoice"
Jesus, he is born

to H. Kierans more dynamic translation (which Heather sings on her album):

Let Christian men take heart today;
The devil's rule is done!
Let no man heed the devil more,
For Jesus Christ has come!
But hear you now what angels sing:
How Mary maid bore Jeusus King

The Huron chorus goes:
Jesous ahatonhia, ahatonhia!
Jesous ahatonhia

Heather sings it mixed English and Huron:
Jesous ahatonhia, Jesus is born!
Jesous ahatonhia

... which really kind of appeals to me.

[sandra_sk]

Heather's album "This Endris Night" is one of my favorite albums. And it got me a modicum of admiration when I took it into work one year to play during our Christmas potluck. When I mentioned that the album was done by a friend of mine, a colleague was very impressed. I thought it was because I moved in social circles that included successful recording artists. But no, his comment was "wow, you're friend is HOT!" Oh well.

(no biggie for me - lots of my friends are hot. So there)

[eithne_eoforwic]

I LOVE Heather's This Endris Night (my other fave smas album is Duffy's Black Santa)

[fox_sejant]

I recall Miss Amber making us learn a Huron carol and I kinda sorta remember some of the words. Without seeing the lyrics you're complaining about I cannot fully grasp your objection. Link?

I don't recall In the Bleak Midwinter at all.

Link

[camillofan]

I know you weren't talking to me, but here's a link: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1799.html :-)

[eliskimo]

I learned the Huron Carol in Mrs. McLean's class at Sunnylea, not from Miss Amber at Islington.

If I recall correctly, "In the Bleak Midwinter" was something Miss Amber had us learn when I was in Grade Seven, thus you were in Grade Five and still at Sunnylea. Miss Amber changed at least half of the Christmas concert every year. There were some standbys we sang every year, but she was aware (I think) that she had a captive parent audience and didn't want to bore them by having us all sing the same stuff three years straight. That and there was a recording done every year. I still have least one of them.