I promised a couple of days ago that you hadn't seen the last of Great Big Sea on this blog. I find their rollicking, shanty-ish styling of many traditional tunes refreshing in the face of a seemingly never ending stream of choral versions of these carols that seem to sap all the fun out of them. At the beginning of that video Sean McCann, "The Shanty Man" claims that today's carol "The Seven Joys of Mary" comes from his home of Newfoundland. As far as he can tell it probably does, since Newfoundland is to Irish music in the New World what Appalachia is to English balladry. But, as we've come to learn about folk carols in the past nearly 3 weeks, almost all of them come from across the pond at some point. I also don't think this makes for a bad drinking song, especially if you're Catholic.
Where did the Protestants go astray?
The title of the song begs the question: what are the seven joys of Mary? In religious tradition, usually Roman Catholic, there are a number of events in the life of Mary as the mother of Jesus that are denoted as her "joys," almost always beginning with the annunciation--Gabriel appearing to Mary to tell her she will give birth to the son of God--and almost always ending with the "coronation of the virgin in heaven." In the devotional, which is used as a Franciscan Rosary, the joys are not all acts of Christ, but more often things that happened to Mary herself. Through the years the number has fluctuated: there were originally five joys of Mary, then seven, then nine, even as many as fifteen in some medieval texts of the devotional. Seems that over time Mary has gotten happier and happier!
*Ahem*
As a devotional, the idea goes back to at least the 15th century--doesn't everything?--but as a carol it takes many forms from many times and places, usually beginning around that time all the way up to the 19th century. A likely first form of the carol can be found in "Off the 5 Joyes Of Owr Lady," transcribed by Thomas Wright from the same manuscript as "This Endris Night", which dates from around 1475. Obviously that one is short a couple of joys, but other version from only slightly later make up for them, and seven seems to be the agreed upon number by the early 19th century. After filtering through all the songs that are "the same, only different" on this subject, we have the following breakdown of joys if you're English vs. if you're American and need everything Disney-fied:
English American
1. Jesus sucking at her breast 1. Jesus being born
2. Jesus curing the lame 2. Curing the lame
3. Jesus curing the blind 3. Curing the blind
4. Jesus raising the dead 4. Reading the Old Testament in the
5. Jesus bearing the cross temple
6. Jesus wearing the crown of heaven 5. Raising the dead
7. Writing with a golden pen (?) 6. Rising from the dead
7. Wearing the crown of heaven
If you're paying attention and maybe did some homework, you've noted that these joys in the carol versions we have today are different from Mary's joys in the Seven Joys of the Virgin as a devotional. Maybe the meter works better this way, maybe someone just is bad at translating, but I don't have a concrete explanation for why that is. Also, much like "The Twelve Apostles," another counting song, this tune hasn't always been associated with Christmas. In fact, in its medieval version, it was a year-round thing. But in modern times this is considered a Christmas song, and that's the only time of year you're likely to hear it, boldly assuming that you ever will outside of this post. I said at the beginning that I like rollicking shanty version best, because I'm a folk musician, but here's something a little more formal for those of you who wear nice clothes to concerts:
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