Latter Lammas and Second Shoots

Sir George Clausen, 'Harvest (Tying the Sheaves)'

August 1st is Lammas Day, the earliest Anglo-Saxon festival of the harvest - a day of first-fruit offerings, on which loaves of bread made from the first corn were blessed. The word comes from the Old English hlaf, 'loaf' + mæsse, 'mass'. And if you want to see the word hlafmæssedæg in the wild, as it were, there's an Anglo-Saxon charm for the protection of grain that goes like this:

[...] lange sticcan feðerecgede 7 writ on ægðerne sticcan[...] ælcere ecge an pater noster oð ende 7 lege þone [...]an þam berene on þa flore 7 þone oðerne on [...] ofer þam oðrum sticcan. þæt þær si rode tacen on 7 nim of ðam gehalgedan hlafe þe man halgie on hlafmæssedæg feower snæda 7 gecryme on þa feower hyrna þæs berenes. þis is þeo bletsung þærto. Vt surices garbas non noceant has preces super garbas dicis et non dicto eos suspendis hierosolimam ciuitate. ubi surices nec habitent nec habent potestam. nec grana colligent. nec triticum congaudent. þis is seo oðer bletsung. Domine deus omnipotens qui fecisti celum et terram. tu benedicis fructum istum in nomine patris et spiritus sancti. amen. 7 Pater noster.

So this is what you should do to protect your harvested corn from mice and other pests:

[Take two] long pieces of four-edged wood, and on each piece write a Pater noster, on each side down to the end. Lay one on the floor of the barn, and lay the other across it, so that they form the sign of the cross. And take four pieces of the hallowed bread which is blessed on Lammas day, and crumble them at the four corners of the barn. This is the blessing [you should say] for that: "So that mice do not harm these sheaves, say prayers over the sheaves and do not cease from saying them. City of Jerusalem [?], where mice do not live they cannot have power, and cannot gather the grain, nor rejoice with the harvest." This is the second blessing: Lord God Almighty, who made heaven and earth, bless these fruits in the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And [then say] a Pater Noster."

I'd welcome a better translation of the first Latin section if anyone can provide one; the second is obvious enough, but I can't make much sense of the first. This is one of those fascinating mixtures of folk-custom and Christianity which you often get in Anglo-Saxon charms - is this pagan magic or Christian ritual? Or both? It's hard to tell. The manuscript from which this charm comes (British Library, Cotton Vitellius E xviii) was written in a monastery at Winchester in c.1030 - perhaps the very heart of Christian orthodoxy in Anglo-Saxon England - and this charm survives alongside other prayers, rituals and an assorted collection of highly useful information: good and bad days for bloodletting, how to cure sick cattle and sheep, how to keep people from stealing your bees, the most lucky days for childbirth, and so on. (A list can be seen here). Since Lammas itself, like many agricultural festivals, is a place where Christian and pagan practices find common ground in a universal human need - daily bread - it's no wonder its blessing had a special power.

Harvesting sheaves, in British Library, Lansdowne 383, f.6v

On another note, what really intrigued me today when I looked up the word 'Lammas' was the third definition in the OED entry:

latter Lammas, a day that will never come. at latter Lammas: humorously for ‘never’.

1567 GASCOIGNE Instruct. Making Verse Posies (1575) Many writers...draw their sentences in length, & make an ende at latter Lammas.

1576 GASCOIGNE Steele Glas. This is the cause (beleue me now my Lorde)...That courtiers thriue, at latter Lammas day.

1642 FULLER Holy State. IV. xv. 316 This your will At latter lammas wee'l fulfill.

a1734 NORTH Lives of Norths (1826) I. 4 The very expectation of them puts me in mind of latter Lammas.

1805 W. TAYLOR in Ann. Rev. III. 244 This convocation was somewhat unbecomingly postponed to latter Lammas.

1857 KINGSLEY Two Years Ago vii, A treatise...which will be published probably...in the season of Latter Lammas, and the Greek Kalends.


I'm fond of quaint expressions for 'a day that will never come'. Good examples include when two Sundays come together and not in a month of Sundays, as well as St Tib's Eve and the twelfth of never. Besides 'latter Lammas', the OED has now added to this list on the Greek Calends, which it explains is "humorous for Never; since the Greeks used no calends in their reckoning of time". That's donnish humour, I suppose!

At the opposite extreme, expressions meaning 'for ever' also tend to have an unearthly ring to them, like 'forever and a day' or the fantastic phrase 'world without end', which is such a wonderful translation of in saecula saeculorum. I wrote about some alternative earlier English forms of that expression in one of my psalm translations posts: through worlds of worlds, in all the worlds, from world into world... But world without end is still the best. Although it's most familiar from the doxologies of the Book of Common Prayer, it also makes me think of Shakespeare's Sonnet 57: "nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour / Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you..." Waiting for a lover who would only come, perhaps, at latter Lammas.

And perhaps even better is the concept of 'lammas growth':

Lammas growth, also called Lammas leaves, Lammas flush, second shoots, or summer shoots, is a season of renewed growth in some trees in temperate regions put on in July and August (if in the northern hemisphere, January and February if in the southern), that is around Lammas day, August 1, which is the Celtic [sic!] harvest festival.

I don't know why, but that really caught my imagination. A flush of fresh growth in a mature tree - isn't there a poem waiting to be written in that? 'Lammas leaves', you could call it - or perhaps 'second shoots'. But each of those phrases would make a wonderful title. 'Lammas flush'. Beautiful.

Flowers that glide

George Herbert died on 1 March, 1633, but in some places he is commemorated today, 27 February. 'The Flower' is my favourite poem of his, and it's the perfect poem for this season when the spring flowers are coming tentatively to life.

There are some lovely things in this poem: I'll talk about gliding below but the other one I want to point out is the irresistible idea that the flowers in winter go to visit their 'mother-root', where they 'keep house unknown' - very much like John Donne's tree-sap which in winter 'doth seek the root below', but a more homely, cheerful kind of image.


The Flower

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse? It was gone
Quite under ground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.


These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickning, bringing down to hell
And up to heaven in an houre;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell,
We say amisse,
This or that is:
Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O that I once past changing were;
Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Offring at heav’n, growing and groaning thither:
Nor doth my flower
Want a spring-showre,
My sinnes and I joining together;


But while I grow to a straight line;
Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline:
What frost to that? what pole is not the zone,
Where all things burn,
When thou dost turn,
And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my onely light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide:
Which when we once can finde and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.


'We are but flowers that glide.' glide is one of those impossibly beautiful words where just reading the dictionary list of citations is like reading a piece of found poetry. To take just one or two medieval examples: in the Old English Andreas, a ship moves through the water 'as a bird glides through the heavens'; in Beowulf the sun 'glides' above the earth; a Middle English homily compares the penitent sinners' tears to 'burning embers that glide down their faces'; Havelok's blood pours from his wounds 'like water that glides from the well'...

In Old and Middle English and as late as Herbert's day, glide is associated with any kind of smooth movement - flying through the air, sailing, skating; the progress of the sun and moon across the sky, or of the sun's beams towards the earth; the swift movement of a weapon, running water, the glance of an eye, and things which slip or which, like time and life, just slip away. In a more abstract context, as the Middle English Dictionary shows, it could even be used of the relationship between the Holy Ghost and the other members of the Trinity - where we say the Spirit 'proceeds from the Father and the Son', several ME sources have 'the Ghost which glides from them both', appropriate perhaps because a gliding movement is imperceptible, impossible to track. Ghosts in the literal sense are of course especially associated with gliding: in medieval poetry I can't help thinking of Langland's triumphant assertion that no 'grisly ghost' may glide where the protecting shadow of the cross falls; and there is an unforgettable passage in the romance Sir Amadace where a knight's mysterious ghostly benefactor 'glode away as dew in the sun'.

In Herbert's line the sense of glide is 'pass away', with perhaps the kind of imperceptible 'melting' into death envisaged by John Donne:

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

I wouldn't exactly associate flowers with this kind of gliding away - I would have thought they wither too quickly - but it comes up several times in the Bible, of which Herbert was surely thinking here: man "cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not' (Job 14:2); "the days of man are but as grass: for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it no more" (Psalm 103: 15-16); "all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it" (Isaiah 40:6-7). Strangely enough, or perhaps not so strangely, there's swift and smooth movement in all these passages. The fleeing shadow, the wind moving over the flower, the spirit of the Lord blowing upon it; any of those verbs might have called gliding to Herbert's mind. Shadows and spirits glide, as we saw above; and death, too, could glide, as in this fourteenth-century poem, another one full of fading flowers:

Ne is no quene so stark ne stour,
Ne no leuedy so bryht in bour
That ded ne shal by glyde.

Psalm Translations: Like as the hart

Today I'm going to post a few translations of Psalm 41 (42), best known from its opening line: "Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God." Let's start with the Latin version and Palestrina's magnificent setting of some of its verses:



1. Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum: ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.
2. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum: quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei?
3. Fuerunt mihi lacrimæ meæ panes die ac nocte: dum dicitur mihi quotidie, ubi est Deus tuus?
4. Hæc recordatus sum, et effudi in me animam meam: quoniam transibo in locum tabernaculi admirabilis, usque ad domum Dei, in voce exultationis et confessionis, sonus epulantis.
5. Quare tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me? Spera in Deo quoniam confitebor illi, salutare vultus mei.
6. et Deus meus. Ad me ipsum anima mea conturbata est: propterea memor ero tui de terra Iordanis et Hermoniim a monte modico.
7. Abyssus abyssum invocat, in voce cataractarum tuarum omnia: excelsa tua, et fluctus tui super me transierunt.
8. In die mandavit Dominus misericordiam suam, et nocte canticum eius: apud me oratio Deo vitæ meæ.
9. Dicam Deo, susceptor meus es: quare oblitus es mei? et quare contristatus incedo, dum affligit me inimicus?
10. Dum confringuntur ossa mea, exprobraverunt mihi qui tribulant me, dum dicunt mihi per singulos dies: ubi est Deus tuus?
11. Quare tristis es, anima mea, et quare conturbas me? Spera in Deum quoniam adhuc confitebor illi, salutare vultus mei, et Deus meus.



This is the translation most familiar to me, from the Book of Common Prayer:

1. Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks : so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
2. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God : when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
3. My tears have been my meat day and night : while they daily say unto me, Where is now thy God?
4. Now when I think thereupon, I pour out my heart by myself : for I went with the multitude, and brought them forth into the house of God;
5. In the voice of praise and thanksgiving : among such as keep holy-day.
6. Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul : and why art thou so disquieted within me?
7. Put thy trust in God : for I will yet give him thanks for the help of his countenance.
8. My God, my soul is vexed within me : therefore will I remember thee concerning the land of Jordan, and the little hill of Hermon.
9. One deep calleth another, because of the noise of the water-pipes : all thy waves and storms are gone over me.
10. The Lord hath granted his loving-kindness in the day-time : and in the night-season did I sing of him, and made my prayer unto the God of my life.
11. I will say unto the God of my strength, Why hast thou forgotten me : why go I thus heavily, while the enemy oppresseth me?
12. My bones are smitten asunder as with a sword : while mine enemies that trouble me cast me in the teeth;
13. Namely, while they say daily unto me : Where is now thy God?
14. Why art thou so vexed, O my soul : and why art thou so disquieted within me?
15. O put thy trust in God : for I will yet thank him, which is the help of my countenance, and my God.


Beautiful. So that's Miles Coverdale's translation of c.1540; going back about 150 years (to the last decade of the 14th century), here's a Wycliffite translation:

1. As an hert desirith to the wellis of watris; so thou, God, my soule desirith to thee.
2. Mi soule thirstide to God, that [i.e. who] is a quik [i.e. living] welle; whanne schal Y come, and appere bifor the face of God?
3. Mi teeris weren looues [i.e. loaves - translating panes] to me bi dai and nyyt; while it is seid to me ech dai, Where is thi God?
4. I bithouyte of these thingis, and Y schedde out in me my soule; for Y schal passe in to the place of the wondurful tabernacle, til to the hows of God. In the vois of ful out ioiyng and knoulechyng; is the sown [i.e. sound] of the etere.
5. Mi soule, whi art thou sory; and whi disturblist thou me? Hope thou in God, for yit Y schal knouleche to hym; he is the helthe of my cheer,
6. and my God. My soule is disturblid at my silf; therfor, God, Y schal be myndeful of thee fro the lond of Jordan, and fro the litil hil Hermonyim.
7. Depthe clepith depthe in the vois of thi wyndows. Alle thin hiye thingis and thi wawis passiden ouer me.
8 The Lord sente his merci in the dai, and his song in the nyyt.
9 At me is a preier to the God of my liif; Y schal seie to God, Thou art my takere vp. Whi foryetist thou me; and whi go Y sorewful, while the enemy turmentith me?
10 While my boonys ben brokun togidere; myn enemyes, that troblen me, dispiseden me. While thei seien to me, bi alle daies; Where is thi God?
11 Mi soule, whi art thou sori; and whi disturblist thou me? Hope thou in God, for yit Y schal knouleche to hym; he is the helthe of my cheer, and my God.


That phrase in verse 7, 'the vois of thi wyndows', struck me as extremely odd; how can cataractarum possibly be translated as 'windows', I asked myself? So I went to the OED, which is enlightening as always (under 'window', 3b):

windows of heaven n. openings in the firmament through which rain was thought to pour. A literalism from Hebrew 'ărubbōth hashshāmayim, which is rendered in the LXX by καταρράκται τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, in the Vulgate by cataractæ cæli = ‘the floodgates of heaven’ (Douay version); in the early Wycliffite version ‘the goteris of heuene’: cf. cataract n. 1.

And under 'cataract', 1a:

pl. The ‘flood-gates’ of heaven, viewed as keeping back the rain (with reference to Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2, where Hebrew has 'rbt lattices, windows, LXX καταρράκται, Vulgate cataractæ, the former prob., the latter certainly, = flood-gates, sluices; hence also French cataractes du ciel). This, the earliest use in English, is now Obs.

Obsolete - I should say so! But how interesting. So that's the connection between windows and waterspouts.

The other bit of linguistic history which this translation gets us into is medieval words for 'sad' - a nice cheerful subject! The Wycliffite translation perfectly illustrates the semantic change in the word 'sorry' since its Old English beginnings. Old English sarig means 'sorrowful, sad', though the word is actually etymologically unrelated to sorrow but instead belongs with sore (and cognate words from other Germanic languages have a semantic range including painful, sensitive, scabby as well as sad). However, to quote the OED once more:

Already in Old English [sorry was] closely associated with the etymologically unrelated word sorrow n. (and its derivatives), which occupied the same semantic field of distress and suffering... As a result, sorrow n. has exerted semantic and possibly formal influence on the present word. While cognates of sorry adj. and the related words sore n.1 and sore adj.1 denote both physical and mental suffering in early use (and are now largely restricted to aspects of pain), sorrow n. and its cognates primarily express the idea of mental and emotional suffering, and the narrowing of the present word to this branch of meaning has been attributed to its long-standing association with sorrow n.


You can see easily enough how this development would come about, and in the Wycliffite translation sorry evidently means 'sorrowful' - sorry is used to translate tristis and sorrowful to translate contristatus, so the translator obviously saw these words as related. We would not use sorry in this way today, but it's still comprehensible; perhaps more so than Coverdale's 'full of heaviness'.

That's not the case for the word our second medieval translation uses for tristis, which is dreary. This is from the thirteenth-century Surtees Psalter:

1. Als yhernes hert at welles of watres to be,
Swa yhernes mi saule, god, to þe.

2. Thristed mi saule night an dai
To god, quicke welle þat es ai:
When I sal come and schewen in sighte
Bifor þe face ofe god ofe mighte.

3. Mine teres vnto me þai wore
Laues dai and night þarfore,
Whil ilkadai es said to me:
“Whare es þi god? what es he?”

4. Þis haf I mined what mai be,
And I yhet mi saule in me:
When I sal fare in stede of selkouth telde,
Vnto þe hous ofe god to welde,

5. In steuen of gladschip and ofe schrifte—
Dine of etand þat es swifte.

6. Whi, mi saule, dreri ertou?
And whi todroues þou me nou?

7. Hope in god; for yhit sal I to him schriue,
Hele of mi face, and mi god ofe liue.

8. Mi saule todreued es at me;
For þat sal I mine ofe þe
Ofe þe land of Iordan, and Hermon
Ofe þe littel hille on-on.

9. Depnes depnes inkalles hegh,
In steuen of þi takenes slegh;

10. Alle þi heghnes and stremes of þe
Forth þai ferden ouer me.

11. In dai sent lauerd his merci,
And bi night his sange for-þi.

12. At me bede to god of mi life nou.
I sal sai to god: mi fanger ertou;

13. Wharfore, if þi wille be,
Haues þou forgeten me?
And wharfore murned in I go,
Whil þat twinges me þe fo?

14. Whil broken ere mi banes on-an
Vpbraided me þat droue, mi fan,

15. Whil al dai þai sain to me:
"Whare is þi god, whare is he?"

16. Whi, mi saule, driried ertou?
And whi todroues þou me nou?

17. Hope in god, for yhit sal I to him schriue,
Hele of mi face, and mi god of liue.


Now dreary has experienced a drastic semantic shift, somewhat parallel to that undergone by the word moody which I've discussed before (here and here). You presumably know what dreary means today - 'dull, boring, causing sadness or gloom', as one online dictionary has it. This is a considerable weakening of its medieval meaning, as you can see from its etymology:

Old English dréorig gory, bloody, sorrowful, sad, < dréor gore, falling blood, apparently < Old Germanic type *dreuzo-z; in ablaut relation to Old Saxon drôr , Old High German trôr gore, blood ( < *drauzo-z), and to Old Norse dreyri ( < drauzon-) gore, blood, whence dreyrigr gory, bloody. Generally referred to the verbal ablaut stem *dreuz- , Old English dréosan to drop, fall.

In Old and Middle English it can thus mean 'gory, dripping with blood' and 'cruel, hateful, terrifying', as well as 'sad, sorrowful'. From 'sorrowful' it came to mean 'dismal, gloomy' around the middle of the seventeenth century, but didn't really take on the weaker meaning of 'dull, boring' until the end of the nineteenth.

It continued to mean 'sorrowful' well into the nineteenth century; you may be familiar with the hymn 'Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us', written by James Edmeston (1791-1867), which contains the line, "Lone and dreary, faint and weary, through the desert thou didst go". The meaning here is obviously 'sorrowful', although that has not prevented various ignorant preachers (in my hearing) mocking this line for "calling Jesus boring". Modern hymnals often amend the line, usually to something stupid (one example is splendidly demolished here). This is a great shame, not only because it reminds us how idiotic people can be, but also because dreary is a dignified and heroic word and its previous meaning, though now obsolete in everyday speech, shouldn't be airbrushed out of our language. The word appears in Beowulf, for goodness' sake; are we too clever to sing it in church? Congregations understand that language changes; the chapel where I heard the preacher make fun of it still sings Coverdale's psalms (heaviness and all), so you'd think we could cope with dreary.

Anyway, that's my little rant over. Let's close with Philip Sidney's beautiful version of Psalm 42 (note that he also uses sorry):


1. As the chased hart, which brayeth
Seeking some refreshing brook,
So my soul in panting playeth,
Thirsting on my God to look.
My soul thirsts indeed in me
After ever-living Thee;
Ah, when comes my blessed being,
Of Thy face to have a seeing?

2. Day and night my tears out flowing
Have been my ill-feeding food,
With their daily questions throwing,
Where is now thy God so good?
My heart melts rememb'ring so,
How in troops I want to go:
Leading them, His praises singing,
Holy dance to God's house bringing.

3. Why art thou, my soul, so sorry
And in me so much dismayed?
Wait on God, for yet His glory
In my song shall be displayed,
When but with one look of His
He shall me restore to bliss
Ah, my soul itself appalleth,
In such longing thoughts it falleth.

4. For my mind on my God bideth,
Ev'n from Hermon's dwelling led,
From the grounds where Jordan slideth,
And from Mizzar's hilly head.
One deep with noise of his fall
Other deeps of woe doth call:
While my God, with wasting wonders,
On me, wretch, His tempest thunders.

5. All Thy floods on me abounded,
Over me all Thy waves went:
Yet thus still my hope is grounded
That, Thy anger being spent,
I by day Thy love shall taste,
I by night shall singing last,
Praying, prayers still bequeathing,
To my God that gave me breathing.

6. I will say, O Lord, my tower,
Why am I forgot by Thee?
Why should grief my heart devour,
While the foe oppresseth me?
Those vile scoffs of naughty ones
Wound and rent me to the bones,
When foes ask, with foul deriding,
Where hath now your God His biding?

7. Why art thou, my soul, so sorry,
And in me so much dismayed?
Wait on God, for yet His glory
In my song shall be displayed.
Unto Him a song of praise
Still my thankful heart shall raise;
He who helps my case distressed,
Even my God for ever blessed.


As well as Palestrina, other musical settings of words from this psalm include:

Orlando di Lasso's 'Quare tristis es, anima mea?'.
Settings of 'Was betrübst du dich, meine Seele?' by J. S. Bach and Heinrich Schütz
Mendolssohn's 'As the hart pants'
Handel's 'As the hart pants' (only part of which is on youtube, as far as I could see)

And perhaps most famously, Herbert Howells:



P.S. All the above links are worth checking out, but if you do nothing else you absolutely must watch this wonderful little video:

O sola magnarum urbium: Various Translations

Lambent light in Canterbury Cathedral

'O sola magnarum urbium' is a Latin hymn by Prudentius (384-c.413), sung at Lauds during the Epiphany season. It's best known in English in the translation by Edward Caswall, 'Bethlehem of noblest cities', but there are lots of other translations; this ever-helpful site lists a number of them, and from that list and elsewhere I've compiled a group. I find it interesting to compare translations of the same hymn, almost all of which, in this case, date from the nineteenth century; you see a number of different styles and approaches to translation, especially to the challenge of rendering the original's compact imagery into the narrow confines of a four-line stanza.


First here's the Latin (from here):

1. O sola magnarum urbium
maior Bethlehem, cui contigit
ducem salutis caelitus
incorporatum gignere.

2. Haec stella, quae solis rotam
vincit decore ac lumine,
venisse terris nuntiat
cum carne terrestri Deum.

3. Videre postquam illum Magi,
eoa promunt munera:
stratique votis offerunt
thus, myrrham, et aurum regium.

4. Regem Deumque annuntiant
thesaurus, et fragrans odor
thuris Sabaei, ac myrrheus
pulvis sepulchrum praedocet.

5. Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
qui apparuisti gentibus,
cum Patre, et almo Spiritu,
in sempiterna saecula.


Here's my stab at a literal unpoetic translation:

1. O uniquely-honoured Bethlehem, greater than the great cities, to whom it was given to bring forth from heaven the Lord of salvation in incarnate form.

2. This star, which surpasses the wheel of the sun in beauty and brightness, announces to the nations that God has come, in earthly flesh.

3. The Magi, seeing him, bring forth their Eastern gifts and, kneeling, offer their prayers, incense, myrrh, and royal gold.

4. Gold announces him to be King; the fragrant odour of the incense of Saba, to be God; myrrh foreshadows the dust of the grave.

5. Jesus, who appeared to the Gentiles, glory to Thee, with the Father and the Spirit, world without end.


The basics established, we can move on to something more poetic! Let's start with Caswall, as the most famous rendering:

1. Bethlehem! of noblest cities
None can once with thee compare;
Thou alone the Lord from heaven
Didst for us Incarnate bear.

2. Fairer than the sun at morning
Was the star that told His birth;
To the lands their God announcing,
Hid beneath a form of earth.

3. By its lambent beauty guided,
See the eastern kings appear;
See them bend, their gifts to offer-
Gifts of incense, gold, and myrrh.

4. Solemn things of mystic meaning!-
Incense doth the God disclose;
Gold a royal Child proclaimeth;
Myrrh a future tomb foreshows.

5. Holy Jesu, in Thy brightness
To the Gentile world displayed,
With the Father and the Spirit,
Endless praise to Thee be paid.


My favourite thing about this version is the word 'lambent', which (from the Latin lambere, 'to lick') means 'playing lightly upon or gliding over a surface without burning it, like a ‘tongue of fire’; shining with a soft clear light and without fierce heat' (in the OED's words) and thus, of a star, 'emitting, or suffused with, a soft clear light; softly radiant.' A lovely choice of word!


Another version of Caswall's translation exists, lacking in lambency:

1. Earth has many a noble city;
Bethlehem, thou dost all excel;
Out of thee the Lord from heaven
Came to rule His Israel.

2. Fairer than the sun at morning
Was the star that told His birth,
To the world its God announcing
Seen in fleshly form on earth.

3. Eastern sages at His cradle
Make oblations rich and rare;
See them give, in deep devotion,
Gold and frankincense and myrrh.

4. Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
Incense doth their God disclose,
Gold the King of kings proclaimeth,
Myrrh His sepulchre foreshows.

5. Jesu, whom the Gentiles worshipped
At Thy glad Epiphany,
Unto Thee, with God the Father
And the Spirit, glory be.


Here's another version by the hymnwriter Elizabeth Charles (Mrs Rundle Charles), from her book of hymn translations, Te Deum Laudamus: Christian Life in Song, first published in 1858, p.111:

1. Small among cities, Bethlehem,
Yet far in greatness passing them;
He who shall King and Saviour be,
The Infinite, is born in thee.

2. That radiant star, which hath the sun
In beauty and in light outshone,
Proclaims that God has come to earth
In mortal flesh, of human birth.

3. The Magi, guided by that star,
Their Eastern offerings bring from far,
Prostrate, with vows, their gifts unfold,
Myrrh, frankincense, and royal gold.

4. Treasures and perfumes rich they bring,
Meet tributes for the God and King;
Embalming frankincense and myrrh
Foretell the mortal sepulchre.


(Prudentius' original has only four verses, without a doxology, which is why this and some other translations only have four). I like this translation; verse 2's "In beauty and in light outshone" nicely preserves the Latin "vincit decore ac lumine", which Caswall does not attempt.


Here's an earlier translation, from this book, The Catholic Harp: containing the morning and evening service of the Catholic Church, embracing a choice collection of masses, litanies, psalms, sacred hymns, anthems, versicles, and motifs, ed. Philip A. Kirk (New York, 1830), p.78:

1. Let other cities strive, which most
Can of their strength or heroes boast;
Beth'lem alone is chosen to be
The seat of heav'n-born majesty.

2. Led by the star, the sages ran
To own their King both God and Man;
And with their incense, myrrh and gold
The mysteries of their vows unfold.

3. To God the censer's smoke ascends;
The gold the sov'reign King attends;
In myrrh the bitter type we see
Of suff''ring and mortality.

4. To Christ who did the Gentiles call,
Be endless glory giv'n by all;
To God the Father we repeat
The same, and to the Paraclete.


The first verse is nice - a less literal but more poetic translation than some of the other examples.


The next translation is by Henry Trend, published in Lyra Messianica: Hymns and Verses on the Life of Christ, Ancient and Modern, with Other Poems, ed. Orby Shipley (London, 1864), pp.161-2:

1. The noblest cities upon earth
Must yield, O Bethlehem, to thee;
'Twas thine to give mysterious Birth
To Christ, the Incarnate Deity.

2. More glorious than the Sun at morn,
Thy Herald-Star its rays unfurled,
Proclaiming that the Babe was born
Whose Power should save a dying world.

3. Drawn by its guiding light from far,
The Sages at His Cradle meet,
With Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh
To worship at His sacred Feet.

4. Nor vain their mystic Offering -
The Incense owned the Child as God;
The Gold did homage to the King;
The Myrrh His Death and Burial showed.


I'm not convinced that a star can 'unfurl' its rays, nor exactly sure about the sacred feet...


Here's a good one, by C. E. Maiden and W. Quennell:

1. Earth hath many a mighty city;
Bethlehem, mightier thy renown,
Where the Captain of Salvation,
Christ, the Incarnate Lord, came down.

2. Brighter than the noon-day splendour
Rose the star that shewed His birth,
To the world its God announcing
Came in human flesh to earth.

3. Wise men from the east behold Him,
And their treasured gifts unfold,
Offering Him, in deep devotion,
Frankincense, and myrrh, and gold.

4. For their God the fragrant incense;
Gold, the tribute for a King;
Myrrh, His precious death foreshadowing,
For His sepulchre they bring.

5. Jesu, Lord, Who then to Gentiles
Didst Thy presence manifest,
With the Father and the Spirit,
Glory be to Thee addressed. Amen.


I like the phrase 'Captain of Salvation', an unusual touch.


The next translation is distinguished by the super-classical pre-modern use of 'car' - guaranteed to confuse a modern congregation! - and by the word 'Magians', which is an unusual term for 'magi' but which does date back to at least the Book of Common Prayer (according to the OED). This version is by Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor, in Ancient Hymns, from the Roman Breviary, for Domestick Use (London, 1837), p.42:

1. First of cities, Bethlehem,
Hail, most favour'd! When he came,
Saviour of the human race,
Thee the Godhead deign'd to grace.

2. Brighter than the sun's bright car,
And more glorious was the star,
Which in Thee new-born from high
Told the incarnate Deity.

3. Him what time the Magians saw,
Forth their orient gifts they draw;
Prostrate they with vows unfold
Myrrh, and frankincense, and gold.

4. Frankincense and gold they bring
To announce their God and King;
Spice of aromatic myrrh
To announce his sepulchre.

5. Jesus, let thy name be blest,
To the Gentiles manifest;
To the Father glory be,
With the Spirit, and with Thee!


The final translation is one which especially appeals to me, and not only because it can be sung to that wonderful tune 'The Truth from Above'. Internet sources say that it's a composite translation and credit no single author, which is a shame. Though not very literal, it has some nice features, especially the first verse and the phrase 'conscious skies' - what a lovely way to put it!

1. O chief of cities, Bethlehem,
Of David’s crown the fairest gem,
But more to us than David’s name,
In you, as man, the Saviour came.

2. Beyond the sun in splendour bright,
Above you stands a wondrous light
Proclaiming from the conscious skies
That here, in flesh, the Godhead lies.

3. The wise men, seeing Him so fair,
Bow low before Him, and with prayer
Their treasured eastern gifts unfold
Of incense, myrrh, and royal gold.

4. The golden tribute owns Him King,
But frankincense to God they bring,
And last, prophetic sign, with myrrh,
They shadow forth His sepulchre.

5. O Jesus, whom the Gentiles see,
With Father, Spirit, One in Three:
To You, O God, be glory giv’n
By saints on earth and saints in Heav’n.

Psalm Translations: I will lift up mine eyes

In a long-delayed follow-up to this post, here are some medieval translations of Psalm 121, which in the King James Bible goes like this:

1. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
8. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

The youtube video has nothing to do with translations of this psalm (though for reference, it is of course the text of the Book of Common Prayer, not the KJV), but my goodness, it is beautiful. Anglican chant is one of the loveliest things in the world.

Anyway, this is the same psalm in the Wycliffite Bible (late 14th century):

1. I reiside myn iyen to the hillis; fro whannus help schal come to me.
2. Myn help is of the Lord; that made heuene and erthe.
3. The Lord yyue not thi foot in to mouyng; nether he nappe, that kepith thee.
4. Lo! he schal not nappe, nether slepe; that kepith Israel.
5. The Lord kepith thee; the Lord is thi proteccioun aboue thi riythond.
6. The sunne schal not brenne thee bi dai; nether the moone bi nyyt.
7. The Lord kepe thee fro al yuel; the Lord kepe thi soule.
8. The Lord kepe thi goyng in and thi goyng out; fro this tyme now and in to the world.

To be honest, the thing that strikes me about this translation is not very scholarly or devout: the word 'nap' is really funny. We can be glad that subsequent translators have decided that 'slumber', a considerably more dignified word, was more appropriate. A good number of the citations for nappen in the Middle English Dictionary are from Wycliffite texts, so either it didn't seem comical to them or it was part of the 'everyday diction' thing they had going on.

The repetition of keep and keepeth follows the Latin Vulgate, which has custodit or custodiat six times in eight verses; the KJV, note, has versions of 'keep' three times and then switches to 'preserve' (also three times) to translate the same word. Who knows what they thought the difference was.

For comparison, this is a rhymed version from the Surtees Psalter, from thirteenth-century Yorkshire:

1. I houe mine eghen in hilles, to se
Whethen sal come helpe to me.

[according to the OED, hove meaning 'raise' has been obsolete for a few centuries now, but it's related to Modern English heave. Whethen = whence]

2. Mi helpe sal be lauerd fra,
Þat maked heuen, erthe als-swa.

[fra = from; the first line scans in Middle English because lauerd, 'lord', has two syllables, from OE hlaford]

3. Noght in stiringe mi fote giue he,
Ne he sal slepe þat yhemes þe.

[yeme, 'to care for, to guard', didn't make it out of the Middle English period, but it's a nice word. This was the translator's choice for custodit, and it's a good one.]

4. Loke noght sal slepe ne, slepe sal wele,
Whilke þat yhemes Iraele.

[no napping here. Whilke = that same one]

5. Lauerd yhemes þe, lauerd þi schilder be
Ouer þe righthand ofe þe.

6. Bi dai noght þe sunne skalde þe sal
Ne þe mone bi night with-al.

7. Lauerd fra alle iuel yheme þe;
Lauerd þi saule yheme he.

8. Lauerd yheme þine ingange and þine outgange,
Fra hethen and in to werlde lange.

[hethen = hence]

'in to werlde lange' in the last verse is the same phrase as the Wycliffite 'in to the world', both attempting to translate 'in saeculum'. We're so used to 'world without end' now that other versions of it sound odd, but Old and Middle English had a number of versions of the phrase. The OED is instructive on the subject:

world
In various phrases with the sense ‘for ever and ever, for all time, throughout eternity’. Chiefly in religious context or with religious connotation. [After various post-classical Latin phrases containing saeculum, e.g. usque in saeculum, in saeculum saeculi, in saecula saeculorum, all attested in the Vulgate, in turn after various Hellenistic Greek phrases containing αἰών aeon n. (e.g. εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, εἰς αἰῶνα αἰῶνος, ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων) in the Septuagint, which render various biblical Hebrew phrases containing ʿōlām age, aeon, long duration (in post-biblical Hebrew also ‘world’).

Post-classical Latin in saeculum saeculi and in saecula saeculorum (and their Greek models) imitate a biblical Hebrew idiom expressing a superlative or elative, also seen in e.g. holy of holies n. at holy n. 5 (see note at that entry) and Song of Songs at song n. 2b, in which the construct state of a noun is followed by the plural of its absolute state; although this construction is apparently unattested with ʿōlām , compare synonymous biblical Hebrew phrases like lĕ-ʿōlām wā-ʿeḏ ‘for ever and ever’, lit. ‘to ages and ages’, where ʿōlām is paired with its near synonym ʿeḏ ‘perpetuity’.]

The various phrases are:

a. to (also oth on, into, unto) (the) world. Obs.
Quotations from OE to c.1425.

b. in (the) world of world(s) (also in to (occas. to, through) (the) world(s) of world(s)). In Old English (and early Middle English) on (also þurh, geond) worulda woruld. Obs.
Quotations from OE to ?1591.

c. Similarly in (also into, through) all (the) worlds (of worlds) (in Old English (and early Middle English) on (also þurh, geond) ealra worulda woruld). Also in (or for) everlasting worlds, world always. Obs. (arch. in later use).
Quotations from OE to 1842 - the last is Tennyson, the one considered archaic, presumably: I heard his deep ‘I will’, Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold From thence thro' all the worlds.

e. from world into world(s). Also fro the world and in to the world. Obs.
Quotations from c.1225-1447.

And on 'world without end':

d. (a) world (occas. worlds) without end. In later use also hyperbolically: endlessly, eternally, for ever. In Old English (and early Middle English) also (on, to) worulde (a) butan ende.
[Frequently used to translate the post-classical Latin phrases saeculum saeculi, saecula saeculorum, etc.; especially with reference to the final words of the doxology, after its post-classical Latin text sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum, lit. ‘as it was in the beginning, and now, and always, and in the ages of ages’, itself after Hellenistic Greek καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων , lit. ‘now as well as always and into the ages of the ages’. In a biblical context the phrase world without end is first attested translating post-classical Latin saeculum saeculi (and variants) in Coverdale's Bible and also appears in the A.V., but quot. lOE (which does not translate a known Latin original) shows that an equivalent phrase was used in one English version of the doxology at an earlier date... Compare also Anglo-Norman secle sanz fin (c1240 or earlier).]

Interesting.

Whitsun Week

The court of King Arthur (BL Royal 20 D IV f. 1)

The week following Pentecost is a lost holiday. From the Middle Ages until the early 20th century the period around Whitsun was the principal summer holiday of the year - especially Whit-Monday, i.e. today. It was the time for fairs, Morris dancing, games, ale-drinking, school and church processions, weddings, wandering into the countryside, and generally having a good time. Sadly the decision to fix the Spring Bank Holiday to the last Monday in May has pretty much destroyed all sense of the season - even the name 'Whitsun' (the English name for the feast since at least the eleventh century) is increasingly forgotten.

So, like me, you are probably doing nothing to mark this day. But here are some of the things you could once have been doing (from this site):

In medieval Western Europe, Pentecost was a period of great festivity, and was considered a day of more importance than can be easily explained by the incidents connected with it, recorded in the gospel, or by any later Christian legends attached to it. It was one of the great festivals of the kings and great chieftains in the medieval romances. It was that especially on which King Arthur is represented as holding his most splendid court. The sixth chapter of the Morte d’Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory, tells us how, "Then King Arthur removed into Wales, and 'let crie a great feast that it should be holden at Pentecost, after the coronation of him at the citie of Carlion.'" And chapter one hundred and eighteen adds, 'So King Arthur had ever a custome, that at the high feast of Pentecost especially, afore al other high feasts in the yeare, he would not goe that day to meat until he had heard or seene some great adventure or mervaile. And for that custom all manner of strange adventures came before King Arthur at that feast afore all other feasts.'

It was in Arthur's grand cour pleniere at the feast of Pentecost, that the fatal mantle was brought which threw disgrace on so many of the fair ladies of his court. More substantial monarchs than Arthur held Pentecost as one of the grand festivals of the year; and it was always looked upon as the special season of chivalrous adventure of tilt and tournament. In the romance of Bevis of Hampton, Pentecost, or, as it is there termed, Whitsuntide, appears again as the season of festivities:

In somer at Whitsontyde,
Whan knightes most on horsebacke ride,
A tours let they make on a daye,
Steedes and palfraye for to assaye,
Whiche horse that best may ren.

... Whitsuntide still is, and always has been, one of the most popularly festive periods of the year. It was commonly celebrated in all parts of the country by what was termed the Whitsun-ale, and it was the great time for the morris-dancers. In Douce's time, that is, sixty or seventy years ago [before 1869], a Whitsun-ale was conducted in the following manner:

'Two persons are chosen, previously to the meeting, to be lord and lady of the ale, who dress as suitably as they can to the characters they assume. A large empty barn, or some such building, is provided for the lord's hall, and fitted up with seats to accommodate the company. Here they assemble to dance and regale in the best manner their circumstances and the place will afford; and each young fellow treats his girl with a riband or favour. The lord and lady honour the hall with their presence, attended by the steward, sword-bearer, purse-bearer, and mace-bearer, with their several badges or ensigns of office. They have likewise a train-bearer or page, and a fool or jester, drest in a party-coloured jacket, whose ribaldry and gesticulation contribute not a little to the entertainment of some part of the company. The lord's music, consisting of a pipe and tabor, is employed to conduct the dance.'

These festivities were carried on in a much more splendid manner in former times, and they were considered of so much importance, that the expenses were defrayed by the parish, and charged in the churchwardens' accounts. Those of St. Mary's, at Reading, as quoted in Coates's History of that town, contain various entries on this subject, among which we have, in 1557: 'Item payed to the morrys daunsers and the mynstrelles, mete and drink at Whytsontide, iijs. iiijd.' The churchwardens' accounts at Brentford, in the county of Middlesex, also contain many curious entries relating to the annual Whitsun-ales in the seventeenth century; and we learn from them, as quoted by Lysons, that in 1621 there was 'Paid to her that was lady at Whitsontide, by consent, 5s.' Various games were indulged in on these occasions, some of them peculiar to the season, and archery especially was much practised. The money gained from these games seems to have been considered as belonging properly to the parish, and it is usually accounted for in the church-wardens' books, among the receipts, as so much profit for the advantage of the parish, and of the poor...

Ale was so prevalent a drink amongst us in old times, as to become a part of the name of various festal meetings, as Leet-ale, Lamb-ale, Bride-ale, and, as we see, Whitsun-ale. It was the custom of our simple ancestors to have parochial meetings every Whitsuntide, under the auspices of the churchwardens, usually in some barn near the church, all agreeing to be good friends for once in the year, and spend the day in a sober joy. The squire and lady came with their piper and taborer; the young danced or played at bowls; the old looked on, sipping their ale from time to time. It was a kind of pic-nic, for each parishioner brought what victuals he could spare. The ale, which had been brewed pretty strong for the occasion, was sold by the churchwardens, and from its profits a fund arose for the repair of the church. In latter days, the festival degenerated, as has been the case with most of such old observances; but in the old times there was a reverence about it which kept it pure. Shakespeare gives us some idea of this when he adverts to the song in Pericles:

'It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember eves, and holy ales.'

And further, from here:

Whit walks (or simply ‘Whits’), in which church congregations processed through the streets in their best clothes, were popular, and payments of ‘Whitsun farthings’ were often made to churches for repairs. Parishes also held Whitsun Church Ales across Whitsuntide from Whit Monday to Whit Wednesday, to raise money for charity. Whitsun was a popular holiday because of the likelihood of good weather (good weather on the day promises a good harvest), and these festivities tended to be organized affairs. Church Ales became a focus for parades, fairs, markets, circuses, cricket matches, regattas, displays of archery practice, and country sports such as wrestling, climbing the greasy pole, and even sack races and donkey derbies, and of course Morris dancing: Shakespeare mentions Whitsun Morris dancing in Henry V (II.iv.25). Miracle and Mystery Plays were performed, as at Chester (again mentioned by Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale, IV.iv.134)...

Milk and cream were seasonal fare for Whitsun feasts, as were gooseberries and cheesecakes, and regional food was celebrated, from squab pie in Cornwall to mutton pie in Oxford, to local cakes. As at Easter, it was good luck to wear new clothes at Whitsun, which added to the festivity and colour and general extravagance.

From medieval knights to Shakespeare's Morris dancers and Manchester mill-workers, Whitsuntide is a season hallowed by many centuries of happy holiday. Do something fun today; it's your ancient right.

BL Royal 14 E III f. 89

Now man is brighter than the sun

Despite what we all pretended at the Mass I've just been to, today is not the Feast of the Epiphany. I refuse to be robbed of four days of Christmas! So here is, not an Epiphany carol, but a Christmas carol:

Refrain: Nowel, nowel, nowel,
Nowel, nowel, nowel!

1. Out of youre slepe arise and wake,
For God mankind now hathe i-take
All of a maide without any make.
Of all women she berethe the belle.

2. And throwe a maide faire and wis
Now man is made of full grete pris;
Now angeles knelen to manes servis;
And at this time all this bifel.

3. Now man is brighter than the sonne;
Now man in heven an hie shall wonne;
Blessed be God this game is begonne
And his moder emperesse of helle.

4. That ever was thralle, now is he free;
That ever was smalle, now grete is she;
Now shall God deme bothe thee and me
Unto his blisse, if we do well.

5. Now man may to heven wende;
Now heven and erthe to him they bende;
He that was fo now is oure frende.
This is no nay that I you telle.

6. Now blessed brother, graunte us grace,
A domes day to see thy face,
And in thy court to have a place,
That we mow there singe nowel.

This is from the fifteen-century Selden MS, now in the Bodleian Library. Click on the picture above and you can read this very carol! Note the lovely illuminated capital, and see how the red ink rubrics indicate when the refrain is to be sung.

'Beareth the bell' is one of my favourite Middle English expressions. It means 'win the prize', really, though the OED distinguishes between two phrases: "to bear the bell 'to take the first place, to have foremost rank or position, to be the best' and to bear or carry away the bell 'to carry off the prize'. The former phrase refers to the bell worn by the leading cow or sheep (cf. bell-wether) of a drove or flock; the latter, perhaps, to a golden or silver bell sometimes given as the prize in races and other contests; but the two have been confused." It's the first we have in this carol, but the second seems more appropriately chivalric with relation to the Virgin Mary. Think of winning first prize in a beauty contest, or carrying off the prize in a jousting tournament!

The other feature I like is this carol is the emphatic repetition of 'now', twelve times in six verses, and echoed in the refrain 'Nowell'; it really underlines the point of verse 2, that it was at this time that all this happened.


An utterly unpoetic translation into Modern English:

1. Arise and wake out of your sleep, for God has now taken human form of a maiden without any equal [although 'without any make' also means 'without a mate' and thus also 'a virgin']; among all women she wins the prize.

2. And through this fair and wise maiden, mankind now becomes highly valued (/of great worth); now angels kneel at the service of man; and all this happened at this season.

3. Now man is brighter than the sun, now man shall dwell in heaven on high. Blessed be God and His mother, the Empress of Hell, because this joy has begun.

4. Whoever was a slave is now made free; whoever was small and unimportant is now made great. If we act well, God will now judge both you and me worthy of a place in heaven.

5. Now man is able to go to heaven; now heaven and earth bend before God (or before man? I'm not sure). Enemies become friends. There is no contradicting the truth of what I tell you.

6. Now, blessed Brother, grant us the grace to see thy face on Judgement Day, and to have a place in thy court, where we may sing to thee 'Noel'.

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

9: He turned people into leeks.

No, not really. This is one of Edward's miracles of healing, from the Old Norse saga about his life, Játvarðar saga:

"It happened another time that when king Edward was sitting on his throne, a crippled man came before the door of his lodging and said that Peter the Apostle had sent him thither, and that Peter had told him that the king himself should bear him to Peter's church, and then he would be cured. When this was told to king Edward he went to him, and heard these words himself from the man's mouth. And, showing his faith and humility, he took the man up in his arms and bore him to Peter's church in London, and set him down there. Then the crippled man was made whole and upright as a leek."

Upright as a leek in Old Norse = réttr sem laukr. A leek to an Old Norse writer was a rather more dignified object than we might imagine today: a noble, straight-limbed, smooth kind of thing, fresh and young and green (compare this poem from the Edda). Apparently there is still a Scottish proverb "as clean as a leek", meaning, according to the OED, "perfectly, completely, entirely". That's the same sort of idea as we've got here.

Leeks aside, this is a lovely story. Edward the Confessor was the first king of England of whom it was said that he could cure illness by his touch, in particular the sickness later known as 'the king's evil'. Shakespeare has him doing this off-stage in Macbeth, and you may know that Tolkien borrowed this medieval legend for Aragorn in The Return of the King, where it's said in the ancient lore of Gondor that "the hands of the king are the hands of the healer". Aragorn's healing touch reveals his royal identity, and takes us from leeks to Tolkien in two easy steps.

(I've just noticed that the OED entry on 'the king's evil' cites one manuscript from 1398: "the smel of leke..heleth the kinges yuel and the dropsie". Well, there you go then.)

Let's give the last word on Edward to Shakespeare:

The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.

Edward carrying a beggar on his back, BL Egerton 745, f.91

On Feasts and Fasts and Ember Days

On the theme of continuity with our medieval past...

Last week, September 14th, was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, or Holy Rood Day*, to be more medieval. Three days in the week following that feast - the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday - were traditionally Ember Days, set aside as times of fasting and prayer. There are four periods of Ember Days in the year, at the four seasons of the year: the first week in Lent, the week after Whitsun, the September days, and the week following St Lucy's Day in December. Wikipedia offers, without citation, this mnemonic:

"Fasting days and Emberings be
Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie."

Memorable.

The OED derives 'ember' in this usage from the Old English ymbren, which comes ultimately from OE. ymbryne, that is ymb 'about, round' + ryne 'course, running'. (Although our cautious lexicographer adds "It seems however not wholly impossible that the word may have been due to popular etymology working upon some Vulgar Lat. corruption of quatuor tempora". Not wholly impossible, no.). They do not mention the rather sketchy etymology provided by one fifteenth-century writer, John Mirk, an Augustinian canon from Shropshire who wrote in his collection of homilies for festal days, "Þes dayes byn callet Ymbryngdayes..for encheson þat our old faders wolden ete þes dayes kakes bakyn yn þe ymbres". That is, "these days are called Ember-Days because on these days our ancestors used to eat cakes baked in the embers." Well, no, John, but not a bad try.

(In case this makes you wonder: ember in relation to a fire is not related to the Ember Days; it comes from OE æmerge, and the -b- sneaked in there later).

So the word evokes the turning course of the year, and provides an opportunity to reflect on the passage of time, the involvement of God in the needs of the different seasons of the year. It's an ancient practice of the church, dating back ultimately to pre-Christian tradition, though now observed only sporadically. What always strikes me about such observances, as indicated by the English names they bear - see also, Lammas and Whitsun - is how thoroughly enmeshed they once were in English life. The collections of quotations about these words in the OED and the Middle English Dictionary don't come from learned works, or even from church calendars: they're from laws, charters, letters, even cookery books - mentioned in passing in the records of everyday life, more to be counted on than dates reckoned in days or months. The cycle of medieval life was a round of feasts and fasts, many of which are now almost forgotten. I'm trying to think my way into them, one by one.



*Sometimes in medieval usage called "Holyrood day in harvest" to distinguish it from the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, in May. The two feasts have now been merged... sigh.

Lammas

August 1st is Lammas Day, the first day of autumn. Now when so many people take their holidays in August, this month is usually treated like the height of summer, but there is already a distinct chill of autumn in the air - at least where I am in Kent. I'm sitting by the door into my garden, looking out at the rain falling on a lawn littered with crisp dead leaves. It could be November!

Lammas is also the beginning of harvest; the first part of the word comes from the Old English hlaf, 'loaf'. It was the day on which loaves of bread made from the first corn were blessed at the harvest festival, and it was one of the quarter-days observed in Scotland and northern England until a few centuries ago. But what intrigued me when I looked it up was the third entry under 'Lammas' in the OED:

3. latter Lammas (day), a day that will never come. at latter Lammas: humorously for ‘never’.
1567 GASCOIGNE Instruct. Making Verse Posies (1575) Many writers..draw their sentences in length, & make an ende at latter Lammas.

1576 GASCOIGNE Steele Glas. This is the cause (beleue me now my Lorde)..That courtiers thriue, at latter Lammas day.

1642 FULLER Holy State. IV. xv. 316 This your will At latter lammas wee'l fulfill.

a1734 NORTH Lives of Norths (1826) I. 4 The very expectation of them puts me in mind of latter Lammas.

1805 W. TAYLOR in Ann. Rev. III. 244 This convocation was some~what unbecomingly postponed to latter Lammas.

1857 KINGSLEY Two Years Ago vii, A treatise..which will be published probably..in the season of Latter Lammas, and the Greek Kalends.


I'm very fond of quaint expressions for 'a day that will never come'. My favourites include when two Sundays come together and not in a month of Sundays, as well as St Tib's Eve and the twelfth of never. The OED has now added to this list on the Greek Calends which it explains is "humorous for Never; since the Greeks used no calends in their reckoning of time". That's donnish humour, I suppose. At the opposite extreme, expressions meaning 'for ever' also tend to have an unearthly ring to them, like 'forever and a day' or the fantastic phrase 'world without end', which is such a stroke of genius as a translation of in saecula saeculorum.. Although it's most familiar from the King James Bible, it also makes me think of Shakespeare's Sonnet 57: "nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour / Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you..." Waiting for a lover who would only come, perhaps, at latter Lammas.

Sheer Thursday

The ballad I posted yesterday refers to the Thursday before Easter as 'Scere Thursday'. The OED has English citations for the word from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and interestingly (to me, anyway), this is cognate with the name still used for the day in Scandinavian countries. It's related to the Old Norse skærr or skírr, which both mean 'clean, bright' - so think English 'sheer' - and therefore may derive from the practice of washing the altars on Maundy Thursday, or perhaps to the purification of the soul in confession. 'Maundy' is a good medieval word too and I'm glad it's still in such wide use, but I like the connotations of 'scere' as well.

Palm Sunday, and not-palms

At church this morning, and on this day for as long as I can remember, we carry crosses made of real palms: thick, yellow-beige, almost shiny, which when I was a child used to fascinate me by their strangeness. It hardly seemed like they could ever have been living plants, and to me it gave the ceremony an especially exotic feeling to be holding these strange objects. I'm so used to it that it never occurred to me that when medieval sources talk about palms in this context, they often mean something different.

Palms, of course, not being native to England, they used willow or yew branches on Palm Sunday. The things you learn from the OED! We find this under palm:

3.a. Freq. in pl. A branch or sprig of any of several early-flowering willows (esp. the sallows, Salix caprea and S. cinerea), esp. as substituted in northern countries for the true palm in celebrations of Palm Sunday; a branch of several other kinds of tree or shrub used in a similar way, as yew, Taxus baccata, (N. Amer.) T. canadensis, and spruce, Picea abies; (occas.) any of the trees or shrubs providing such branches. Freq. also: these branches or sprigs collectively.

The night before Palm Sunday, boys would go 'palming' to collect the branches. I wonder where they come from now? A church supplies shop, probably. I also learned from the same source that just as there's a Whitsun, so there was once a 'Palmsun', shortened from Palm Sunday:

1. Palmsun eve the day or the evening before Palm Sunday.

2. In other attrib. uses: designating things relating to or connected with Palm Sunday; spec. designating an event held on or around Palm Sunday.

1531 W. MORE Jrnl. (1914) 339 For the makyng up of ij garnesshe in our kycheon at Worceter lost conveyd from palmeson tyme til nowe.

1813 Sporting Mag. 42 43 The Palmsun Horse Show, at Malton.  
1875 E. TWEDDELL Rhymes Cleveland Dial. 27 Ah'll gan neea mair tit Pomesun Fair.
 1928 A. E. PEASE Dict. Dial. N. Riding Yorks. 92/2 With us the Fairs held in the week preceding or in that following Palm Sunday are ‘Palmsun Fairs’, when, among other customs, it is the practice to exhibit the stallions of each breed. ‘Stowsla Paumsoon Fair is of a Saterda an' Gisbrouff of a Teuwsda.’  
1960 P. B. G. BINNALL Caistor, Lincs. 18 The Caistor Palmsun Fair, held from time immemorial on the Saturday before Palm Sunday for the sale of sheep and cattle, was an institution famous all over this part of England.

As far as Google can inform me, there doesn't seem to be a Palmsun fair in Caistor any more. The OED calls this word 'regional (chiefly north.)' and not obsolete, but it surely must be now - although maybe in the north...

It was the 'willow palms' that really interested me, though. It makes quite a difference to think of crowds bearing branches of greenery, freshly gathered from the fields the night before, rather than the dried dead things we carry. It's much less authentic, of course, if you want to strictly imitate a crowd in first-century Jerusalem, but that wouldn't have mattered so much even a century ago in this country, and even less so in medieval England. Medieval Christians were very good at interpreting foreign elements of the faith in the light of their native culture (as well as vice versa). That's how medieval history works: just as Chaucer's Troy looks like fourteenth-century London, and Noah in the mystery plays talks like any medieval tradesman, a Jewish crowd might wave willow branches from the banks of English rivers. It's not lack of imagination, though in the case of the palms it probably arises from nothing more than necessity. If anything, it's ingenuity: the same process leads to the best literary effects of the period, because it involves taking complete possession of whatever story is being told, engaging thoroughly with it in every detail, and imagining it as no less fresh and living than something that happened yesterday.

Thinking about this reminded me that it's now time to turn to Piers Plowman again, as I like to do in the week before Easter. The later sections of the poem retell the story of the Passion as if it's being witnessed by Will, the protagonist, and it's full of glorious poetry which weaves the language and actions of the liturgy into a startlingly vivid narrative, all while reflecting on time and history and justice and mercy and love, and everything in between. I'll dig it out and post about it. There's so much good medieval literature about the Passion - from the Dream of the Rood to Middle English lyrics to the mystery plays, it's an endless source of inspiration for medieval poets. You couldn't read it all in a week - perhaps not in a lifetime!