Infant holy

‘Here is a teasing mixture of known and unknown’, says Christmas Carols and their Stories (Lion, 1988). This little book points out that only in the 2nd half of the 20th c did these two ancient and anonymous stzs become established as a favourite carol among English speakers. Edith M G Reed translated it in 1921, and published it that Dec in her own teaching magazine Music and Youth in London. ‘She aimed to see and hear songs and hymns through a child’s eyes and ears’. The Polish text had appeared in a 1908 collection, and (with music) in Duncan’s The Story of the Carol in 1911; both books suggest a date in the 13th or 14th c. School Worship included it in 1926, and many more hymnals from 1950 onwards. Hitherto no changes in the English text have been allowed, or needed; stresses apart, the only problem is integral to the carol. The ignorance of the oxen is at best a natural human assumption which other carols (not to mention Christian art) have sometimes contradicted, perhaps on the basis of an imaginative use of Isaiah 1:3.

Although one version of the melody had appeared in the 1877 Hymnal Companion (confusingly named NOEL and set to Angels from the realms of glory), the authentic setting is found in 1911. It is here named INFANT HOLY, and the present arrangement is by Linda Mawson.

b Islington, Middx (N London) 1885, d Barnet, Herts 1933. St Leonard’s Sch; and GSM. Her life’s work lay in music for and with children, aiming to see and hear songs and hymns through a child’s eyes and ears. She edited Music and Youth (later merged with The Music Teacher) from 1923 to 1926, and her best-known (translated) words were first published there. She also edited The Music Student and Panpipes (for children) and wrote Story Lives of the Great Composers. Her own work was also published in The Kingsway Carol Book and Sunday School Praise among other collections. No.361.