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Tree vs. Tree at Christmas

It occurred to me years ago that the ancient Christmas carol “The Holly and the Ivy” really has nothing to do with ivy, even though ivy is mentioned side by side with holly in the title and the refrain. It’s almost as though something was left out of the lyrics:

“The holly and the ivy, when they are both full-grown,”

Ok, I give. When the holly and the ivy are both full grown, then what? The holly has the berries, the blossoms, the thorns, and in the full version, the bark. Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. The ivy has…nothing.

I haven’t thought about that silly little issue in a lot of years, until KBAQ played a song this morning called ”Ivy, Chief of Trees, It Is,” by British composer Sarah Cattley (with a little help from Yoda, there might be.) You can find a very nice performance here with great harmony. Lyrics are here. The Latin “veni coronaberis” means “Come and be crowned.”

So here we are: Two Christmas carols about trees that wear the crown. Will there be civil war in the woods? A duel? A fistfight?

Wait. Hold on. Something weird is going on here: Holly is a tree. Ivy is ground cover, or at best something crawling up the sides of elite college buildings. A little snooping on Wikipedia yielded a clue: An older carol that may have been originally penned in Middle English, called “The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly.” The lyrics in modern English are these:

Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a-cold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.

Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

Ivy hath chapped fingers, she caught them from the cold,
So might they all have, aye, that with ivy hold.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

Holly hath berries red as any rose,
The forester, the hunter, keep them from the does.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

Ivy hath berries black as any sloe;
There come the owl and eat him as she go.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

Holly hath birds a fair full flock,
The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

Good ivy, what birds hast thou?
None but the owlet that cries how, how.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc

(A quick query shows that “laverock” is what they called the lark in Chaucer’s era.)

Wikipedia suggests that holly and ivy are emblematic of the male and female principles. So it’s not a fight over a crown; it’s the battle of the sexes, with the deck severely stacked against women. I also wonder if “The Holly and the Ivy” as we sing it today was sanitized back in the 19th Century, leaving out the verses that slander poor ivy: Holly stands inside, warm by the fire; ivy is left outside to freeze, and so on. If such sanitizing was ever done, I see no mention of it online. So the mystery remains.

I’m looking around for interesting Christmas-related topics and will post the best here. So stay tuned.

One Comment

  1. Rich Rostrom says:

    (HTML fixed, I hope – again)

    The
    amazing Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School Band on parade through a covered shopping arcade…
    at Christmas time. (Look for the “Merry Christmas” banners and other decorations.)

    Did you know Japan does Christmas?

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