Human Flower Project
Orrington, MAINE USA
Murrieta, CALIFORNIA USA
Princeton, MAINE USA
Monday, December 24, 2007
‘The Holly Bears the Crown’
Druids and Christians, Vanessa Williams and the Kings College Boys Choir pay their respects to ilex.
Ilex with flower and fruit
Image: via The Holly Tree
Clement A. Miles, an authority on English Christmas customs, has declared in an ominous passive voice, “Holly is hated by witches.”
Name one! We have never met a witch, or anyone else, who hated holly, certainly not at this time of year. Ilex is the season’s glory: leaves that shine, berries that cheer, height that humbles. The prickle of holly’s leaf at the season of Christ’s birth portends the thorns of Holy Week.
With greater equanimity elsewhere, Miles also writes: “In some old English Christmas carols holly and ivy are put into a curious antagonism, apparently connected with a contest of the sexes. Holly is the men’s plant, ivy the women’s, and the carols are debates as to the respective merits of each. Possibly some sort of rude drama may once have been performed.” There seems loads of drama still, and plenty of rudeness to go around in this competition – we’d call it a draw.
Holly tree with fruit (berries) outside the White House, Washington, DC
Photo: Paul Morse
Several folk songs of holly and ivy seem to set “mery” men versus “wepyn” maidens:
Holy and hys mery men they dawnsyn and they syng,
Ivy and hur maydenys they wepyn and they wryng.
Is this male chavinism? Or maybe just 15th century botany’s restatement of Ecclesiastes: to everything, a season.
This Christmas Eve, we are not in much mood for contest—happy to let the holly win. We quote here in full the beloved carol that Cecil Sharp purportedly collected “from a woman in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire.”
The Baltimore and Ohio’s Famous “Holly Tree by the Tracks” at Jackson, MD
Color postcard w/photo by A. Aubrey Bodine, c. 1954
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Saviour
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
The holly and the ivy
Now both are full well grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir
You can find many 21st century versions of the carol, by Natalie Cole, Renee Fleming, and Vanessa Williams, but let’s follow through and hear from the Kings College Chapel Boys Choir.
Selling Christmas trees and holly in Washington, DC, circa 1930
Photo: Old Picture
By the way, Miles also writes that in Rutland, “it is deemed unlucky to bring (holly) into a house before Christmas Eve.” (Rather a witchy notion.) So now get out the clippers and have at it! Merry Christmas to all.