The scene is a very busy bookshop. A bepigtailed elderwoman protagonist approaches the information desk. She pauses for a moment and then asks…
“Excuse me, Religion is…?”
Her bearded interlocutor pauses for a moment and then replies….
“Religion is in the gold room, just up the stairs.”
He pauses once again, and then asks, “Or were you looking for a more esoteric answer?”
The BBC and certain ‘academics’ are only about three hundred years behind the times. Of course the tune IS still being used today to sing this wonderful carol. We only wish that we could be in St Marys on Christmas Day to sing it with you.
I remember being very confused the first time I heard the carol sung to a tune that wasn’t On Ilkla’ Moor, and thinking that they did things rather oddly on this charming island.
Well, congratulations to them for actually having had the balls to talk to an academic, if not the brains to make much of the story. That’s half a step up from the bulk of modern journalism.
Form the article: He said carols – many of which have folk roots –
Actually, *all* carols have to be a mediaeval (round) dance tune, otherwise they’re merely Christmas hymns (cf Away in a Manger only dating from around 1885). Natch.
The Ilkla’ Moor tune has also been sung in the Cathedral of The Isles, in recent years.
of course it has – and in many a place of good taste.
Can Tony Blair survive attacks such as the letter from former diplomats which he received today? It is hard to imagine anyone governing Britain without even the grudging support of the Establishment.
Last week, I telephoned the Royal Mail Customer Care line to ask them to deliver my post to the right house and everyone else's post to their own houses rather than mine.They have written this morning apologising and enclosing a book of twelve first class stamps in compensation for my troubles. This is was good wheeze…
Today, we celebrate a Feast Day. Today we remember one of the younger followers of the Lord. One of the witnesses of the first days of the church. Someone who himself wrote down stories and sayings and passed them on to us so that we could find faith in the risen Lord. Today is St…
The link referred to in this week's sermon is http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/features/jewish_eyes/It is a rather interesting account of someone looking at Jesus through Jewish Eyes.
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