Christmas Moon
On the evening of Christmas Day I went into the garden where a cradle moon was hanging like a hammock between the winter constellations.
And the welkin rang………! Oops, sorry. I just couldn’t resist it. Just once, a piece of purple indulgence slipped in (says she, hanging her head and shuffling her feet). How I’d love to use the word ‘welkin’ in some meaningful sense, though sneakily and shiftily, as though helping someone wriggle under a circus tent to avoid paying. ‘Welkin’ has something so gloriously Anglo-Saxon about it, something so redolent of the clashing of swords and horse armour that I would feel the word ought to be part of an alliterative verse in the middle of an heroic epic.
Andrew Gant, in 'The story of Christmas Carols' (Profile Books 2014) tells us that the original first line of ‘Hark, the Herald Angels sing' was ‘Hark how all the welkin rings.’ Now that’s how the word should be used. But just hang on a minute. I did begin by mentioning a cradle moon in this most cradle-song season.
Yet in many of these congregational carols we have an awful lot of clashing and clanging, and bagpipes skirling and full-throated angelic choirs shouting hosannas and praising the King of kings and so forth. Shush there. What about all that peace on Earth? Don’t wake the baby. Why don’t you all go down to the pub?
Hm. The word ‘welkin’ is becoming less attractive to me. It does seem to inspire people to make a lot of noise and to evoke a fully-grown thunder-god by the name Zeus and Thor and Christos Pantokrator - call him what you will.
Actually, I really think I can do without all the shouting and fuss. Did our Palaeolithic ancestors make such a fuss about the returning sun? Perhaps they did indeed. Or perhaps they looked at the sun and at an actual new-born baby, and wondered how it happened, pondering at the same time on the genesis of imagery and the miracle of metaphor.
And the welkin rang………! Oops, sorry. I just couldn’t resist it. Just once, a piece of purple indulgence slipped in (says she, hanging her head and shuffling her feet). How I’d love to use the word ‘welkin’ in some meaningful sense, though sneakily and shiftily, as though helping someone wriggle under a circus tent to avoid paying. ‘Welkin’ has something so gloriously Anglo-Saxon about it, something so redolent of the clashing of swords and horse armour that I would feel the word ought to be part of an alliterative verse in the middle of an heroic epic.
Andrew Gant, in 'The story of Christmas Carols' (Profile Books 2014) tells us that the original first line of ‘Hark, the Herald Angels sing' was ‘Hark how all the welkin rings.’ Now that’s how the word should be used. But just hang on a minute. I did begin by mentioning a cradle moon in this most cradle-song season.
Yet in many of these congregational carols we have an awful lot of clashing and clanging, and bagpipes skirling and full-throated angelic choirs shouting hosannas and praising the King of kings and so forth. Shush there. What about all that peace on Earth? Don’t wake the baby. Why don’t you all go down to the pub?
Hm. The word ‘welkin’ is becoming less attractive to me. It does seem to inspire people to make a lot of noise and to evoke a fully-grown thunder-god by the name Zeus and Thor and Christos Pantokrator - call him what you will.
Actually, I really think I can do without all the shouting and fuss. Did our Palaeolithic ancestors make such a fuss about the returning sun? Perhaps they did indeed. Or perhaps they looked at the sun and at an actual new-born baby, and wondered how it happened, pondering at the same time on the genesis of imagery and the miracle of metaphor.
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