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If carolers come to your front door this December, they will likely sing Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, irrationally demanding that you bring them some figgy pudding (which is pretty hard to come by these days).
What they’re less likely to sing is The Wexford Carol, one of the oldest of all the English language songs of Christmas.
Not many people, in fact, can either hum the tune or recall the words. The Wexford Carol is off our radar screens.
But once you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to forget. This quintessentially medieval carol is like a time machine that transports us to a different setting in a different century.
The origins of The Wexford Carol are unknown. The text is thought to be more than 900 years old. The haunting tune is probably younger.
Local moods and melodies shaped many of the carols we still sing.
Composers often pondered the meaning of Christmas in the context of cold and fiercely beautiful European winters.
What makes The Wexford Carol special is that it’s just so very Irish, evoking the Emerald Isle winter scene at left.
Ireland gets 24 hours of love every St. Patrick’s Day, when the world becomes preoccupied with shamrocks, green beer, and some truly unfortunate hats.
But Ireland’s larger role in history, which often goes unmentioned in classrooms, turns out to be extraordinary.
In his book How the Irish Saved Civilization, historian Thomas Cahill documents the “hinge moment” when the Roman Empire’s disintegration was nearing completion about the fourth century A.D. The soul of Europe was up for grabs.
Barbarian hordes had overrun every major city. The literary treasures of the Greeks and Romans and the spiritual treasures of the early Church might have been lost forever.
But the Irish stood in the gap.
Irish monks preserved the wisdom of the ancients, copying and recopying one-of-a-kind documents.
The monks quietly watched over diverse seeds of truth until they might blossom extravagantly centuries later across Europe.
They also pondered what they considered life’s deepest mystery: how and why God the Creator would ever choose to become one of his own creations in Bethlehem.
Out of such reflections came The Wexford Carol:
Good people all, this Christmas time consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done in sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray to God with love this Christmas day
In Bethlehem upon that morn there was a blessed Messiah born.
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God’s angels did appear which the shepherds in great fear.
“Arise and go,” the angels said, “to Bethlehem, be not afraid.
For there you’ll find this happy morn a princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”
With thankful heart and joyful mind the shepherds went that Babe to find
And as God’s angel had foretold they did our Savior Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid and by his side the Virgin maid
As long foretold upon that morn there was a blessed Messiah born.
Here’s a rendering of it by Lisa Kelly, a founding member of Celtic Woman, an ensemble of Irish female singers.
The Wexford Carol is like a candle in the middle of a cold Irish winter, punching a hole in the darkness.
Who knows?
It might even shine a whole new light on your personal celebration of Christmas.