IT IS very hard to hear The Coventry Carol fresh because it is so often played and has become over-familiar, but it truly is a magnificent lament, inspired by King Herod’s decree that all children under the age of two be murdered and Mary’s foreknowledge of her Son’s suffering. The terrific blog, Clerk of Oxford, offers some history of this medieval carol which has endured for roughly seven centuries:

This is an exquisitely sad nativity song, a lullaby addressed to the baby Christ, but full of compassion and pain and regret for the suffering that the child will later undergo. It dates to the fourteenth century and comes from a manuscript compiled by a Franciscan friar, John of Grimestone.

Is it too sad for Christmas?

I wonder if the popularity of the Coventry Carol today indicates that it expresses something people don’t find in the usual run of joyful Christmas carols – this song of grief, of innocence cruelly destroyed.

Handel’s Messiah is also sad in parts. I say they add just the right somberness to the joy of Christmas.

The Coventry Carol

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young to slay.

Then, woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

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