Lyr Add: Gypsy Christmas Carol

Subject: Gypsy Christmas Carol
From: GUEST,Carroll, The Ancient Yuletide Troll
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:36 AM

Here is an old English "Gypsy Christmas Carol" in which King Herod has morphed into "King Pharoah."

CTYAT

Subject: Lyr Add: GYPSY CHRISTMAS CAROL / KING PHARIM^^^
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:57 AM

For the sake of permanence, discussion, searching, and database harvesting, it's probably best to post lyrics, and not just a link to song (other than pop songs). This song is from Lesley's "Contemplator" site, www.contemplator.com.
-Joe Offer-

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King Pharaoh Gypsy Christmas Carol Download Midi File Lesley Nelson
Information	Lyrics
This gypsy Christmas Carol was sung to Lucy Broadwood in Sussex and Surrey by a gypsy named Goby in 1893. These lyrics are the original version which appears in her collection English Traditional Songs and Carols (1908). Broadwood relates the ballad to Child ballas, St. Stephen and Herod and Carnal and the Crane. A manuscript of St. Stephen and Herod is "judge to be of the time of Henry VI." That ballad tells of ST. Sephen, the dish-bearer to King Herod, who, upon seeing the Star of Bethlehem, says that Christ is born. King Herod replies that is as unlikely as the chicken in his dish would rise up and crow - which it then does. The legend appears throughout Europe and is ancient. The Carnal and the Crane appears in broadsides in the middle of the eighteenth century. The carnal refers to a crow. In a similar tale the crane tells the story of Christs' birth to the crow, relating how the wise men tried to convince Herod Christ was born by the miracle of a roasted bird, which rose fully feathered from the dish. Gypsies substituted Pharoah for Herod. Since the first appearanc of Gypsies in Europe (around the fifteenth century), the Church spread the legend that the Gypsies came out of Egypt and were cursed becaue they refused to accept the Virgin and Christ. According to Broadwood, Gypsies came to believe they were orginally from Egypt and recognized the pharoah as their former king.	King Pharim sat a-musing, A musing all alone; There came a blessed Saviour, And all to him unknown. Say, where did you come from, good man, Oh, where did you then pass? It is out of the land Egypt, Between an ox and an ass. Oh, if you come out of Egypt, man, One thing I fain I known, Whether a blessed Virgin Mary Sprung from an Holy Ghost? For if this is true, is true, good man, That you ve been telling to me, That the roasted cock do crow three times In the place where they did stand. Oh, it's straight away the cock did fetch, And feathered to your own hand, Three times a roasted cock did crow, On the place where they did stand. Joseph, Jesus and Mary Were travelling for the west, When Mary grew a-tired She might sit down and rest. They travelled further and further, The weather being so warm, Till they came unto some husbandman A-sowing of his corn. Come husbandman! cried Jesus, From over speed and pride, And carry home your ripened corn That you've been sowing this day. For to keep your wife and family From sorrow, grief and pain, And keep Christ in your remembrance Till the time comes round again!'
Related Links Gypsy Lore Society Gypsy Collections at the University of Liverpool Links to Gypsy Sites The Christmas Story The Christmas Web with: The History of Christmas Henry VI
From English Traditional Songs and Carols See Bibliography for full information.

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^^^ (No, we're not supposed to post lyrics that are already in the Digital Tradition. You caught me, Malcolm. I did search. Honest, I did.)
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gypsy Christmas Carol
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:20 PM

For a slightly modified and expanded set of this song, see the DT file  KING PHARIM

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gypsy Christmas Carol
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:02 PM

Although it's the same song, the Watersons set in the DT has been slightly re-written where the original text was corrupt and didn't make sense, and has some verses added from a traditional version of The Miraculous Harvest, which was set to the Goby's tune in The Oxford Book of Carols, where they found it with the original text.  It should be interesting for people to see the unmodified traditional version, so I don't think there was anything wrong in posting it.

King Pharim was noted from "Gypsies of the name of Goby, 1893."  Lucy Broadwood's English Traditional Songs and Carols (1908) included the following notes:

"Child's English and Scottish Ballads should without fail be consulted for notes on the carols  St. Stephen and Herod  and the  Carnal and the Crane.  The first-named is preserved in the British Museum, in a MS. judged to be of the time of Henry VI.  It narrates that St. Stephen, dish-bearer to King Herod, sees the Star of Bethlehem, and tells the king that Christ is born.  Herod scoffingly says that this is as likely as that the capon in the dish should crow.  The capon thereupon rises, and crows "Christus natus est !"  This legend is extremely ancient, and widely spread over Europe.  Its source seems to be an interpolation in two late Greek MSS. of the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus.

The Carnal and the Crane (see Sandys' Christmas Carols and Husk's Songs of the Nativity), appeared on broadsides of the middle of the eighteenth century.  The well-informed crane instructs his catechumen, the carnal (i.e., crow), in matters pertaining to the early days of Jesus; and tells how the wise men tried to convince Herod of the birth of Christ by the miracle of the roasted cock, which rose freshly feathered, and crowed in the dish.  It also relates the legend of the Instantaneous Harvest, which occurs in Apocryphal Gospels (see B. Harris Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels).

The carol consists of thirty stanzas, some of which have lines in common with the Surrey carol here given.  It, likewise, is exceedingly corrupted and incoherent, and must have been transmitted orally from some very remote source.  The singers of the Surrey version are very well known Gypsy tramps in the neighbourhood of Horsham and Dorking.

King Pharim is of course a corruption of King Pharaoh, and that name is properly given in a very interesting traditional version of The Carnal and the Crane lately noted in Herefordshire.  It is quite natural that gypsies should substitute "Pharaoh" for "Herod," for, on the first appearance of gypsies in Europe (in the fifteenth century), the Church spread the legend that they came from Egypt with a curse upon them because they had refused to receive the Virgin and Child.  The gypsies in time came to believe themselves Egyptians, and, according to Simson (1865), recognise Pharaoh as their former king.

There is, however, an interesting allusion to Pharaoh in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, Chap. xxv. : "Thence they (Joseph, Mary and Jesus), went down to Memphis, and having seen Pharaoh they staid three years in Egypt; and the Lord Jesus wrought very many miracles in Egypt."  The editor of the Gospel adds, "Memphis may have been visited, but who was Pharaoh? Egypt was then under Roman rule."  The sixth verse of the King Pharim carol is a paraphrase of a passage in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Chap. xx."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gypsy Christmas Carol
From: Genie
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:53 PM

Joe, I was gonna do the kind of post you did, but I didn't have time to do the formatting this morning. Had you not graciously stepped in and done it for me, I would have done it this evening. Thanks for leaping into the breach, as it were!

Mazeltov!

Genie

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gypsy Christmas Carol
From: masato sakurai
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:51 PM

"The Miraculous Harverst" is quoted full with music in Douglas Brice, The Folk Carol of England (Herbert Jenkins, 1967, pp. 53-54); and in L. Edna Walter, ed., Christmas Carols: Old English Carols for Christmas and other Festivals, harmonised by Lucy E. Broadwood (Macmillan/A.C. Black , 1922, pp. 34-37, with illustrations). The latter has modified spellings ("Pharaoh" instead of "Pharim"), the title being "King Pharaoh--Part I: The Miracle of the Cock (Sussex Gypsies' Carol)"; and "--Part II: The Miraculous Harvest."

~Masato