Christmas Carols

So here am I, sitting at the Media reference desk, listening to Christmas carols playing on the departmental boom box. And I am thinking about how my most favorite music to sing consists of Christmas carols and that I know just about every one of them. But then I hear a instrumental version of the old French carol, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella." And I realize that I may know the song but don't know much about it. I mean, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella?" What an intriguing name for a Christmas carol. And who the heck are Jeanette and Isabella or is it just one person named Jeanette Isabella? So I wiki. It is just one of the things I do.

The Wikipedia tells me that the song orginated in 16th century France as dance music for the nobility, who got all the good stuff in those days. Then it says that it became a Christmas carol in some mysterious way, wherein country folk, shepherds and milkmaids, steal up on the Virgin and Child with their torches to gaze on the newborn, saying "Ah, ah, oh what a lovely mother. Ah, ah, oh what a lovely child." Or something like that. Anyway it's in French. The Wikipedia says that they still enact the song in France with children dressing up as shepherds and milkmaids to carry torchs and candles to midnight mass on Christmas Eve while singing the carol.

And, of course, reading between the lines, that is how a dance tune for the nobility morphed into a Christmas carol. Some musically inclined peasant or priest appropriated the tune for children to sing at a navitiy scene and put those words to it. They were always doing stuff like that in the middle ages. Jeanette Isabella was a milkmaid who wanted to gaze on the newborn. I like that. It is very simple and direct and real. I love Christmas carols.