Child in the manger

Four different Scots and a Welshman contribute to the hymn of strong contrasts, as we now know it. Mary Macdougall (later Macdonald) wrote many Gaelic verses which she would sing at her spinning wheel, throughout her long life on the Island of Mull. One, probably from the early 1800s, was about the ‘Child of Aigh’—meaning power, wonder, joy. Many years later, Lachlan Macbean published his translation in Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands in 1888, which approaches the original title in the final stz, with ‘infant of wonder’. The book was enlarged and reissued as Songs and Hymns of the Gael in 1900. The wise and near-universal omission of the 2nd of his four stzs (‘Monarchs have tender, delicate children …’—still apparently recognized in the USA!) means that the present stz 2 begins with ‘Once’ rather than ‘But’. David and Jill Wright comment: ‘Mary Macdonald was a contemporary of Joseph Mohr [see 377, note] … Both lived in small villages in mountainous areas. Both authors wrote 3-verse hymns with short, simple lines, to be sung by people in their villages. Neither of the authors ever expected their hymns to be translated, let alone to be sung throughout the world’ (30 Christmas Hymns, 1989).

The tune chosen by the translator, named BUNESSAN in 1927 (?) from the village near the writer’s birthplace on the SW corner of Mull, had been noted down by Alexander Fraser from the singing of an unknown wandering highlander. Its ‘majestic sweep’ and ‘stark dignity’ are widely appreciated. It first became well-known from its inclusion in Irish and Scottish hymnals in 1919 and 1927 respectively. Songs of Praise set it to Eleanor Farjeon’s new lyric Morning has broken which has its own history both secular and sacred, ensuring the wide use of the tune from schools to the pop music charts. Rejoice and Sing (1991) includes it 3 times, once in D flat; Albert Bayly and many other 20th-c authors have written words for it. The arrangement by John Hughes was made for the 1962 Baptist Hymn Book; an alternative TUDDENHAM is also offered here (481).

b Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire 1852, d Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire 1931. Living in the generation after Mary MacDonald (qv), he edited the Fifeshire Advertiser and was an authority on Gaelic culture including its literature. Among other writing, Songs and Hymns of the Gael, or of the Scottish Highlands (1888) which he collected and published, proved crucial in preserving and popularising much of the older material. No.370.

b Ardtun, Isle of Mull, Argyllshire 1789, d Ardtun 1872. Her whole life was spent on the Scottish W coast island of Mull. As a crofter’s wife who saw troubles enough over the years, she would compose and sing her Gaelic songs while sitting at the spinning wheel, which may have given a sense of rhythm comparable to Wesley’s horseback rides. She belonged to the local Baptist ch, where her brother became the first Baptist minister on the island. No.370.