The song children sing

Today is Saint Nicholas Day, the day when we commemorate the 4^th-Century bishop of Myra, one of the participants of the Council of Nicaea. This is actually the day he died, which doesn’t get mentioned much in our seasonal commemoration.

(Interestingly, about 600 years after Nicholas died, Italian merchants robbed his grave in Myra and took his body to Bari. I’m not touching the issues around what possesses a group of people to do that kind of stuff and expect to remain in God’s favor.)

He’s the patron of Russia, Greece, sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers and students. I’m trying to think of what commonalities connect those groups, but without luck.

We of course have conflated Saint Nicholas with major gift giving (which might explain the children, merchants and pawnbrokers; possibly the repentant thieves, too), via the Dutch version of his name, Sinterklaas. And today is the day (instead of the 25^th) when children in a number of countries get their gifts (if they’ve been good; if they’ve been naughty, they get coal or switches, depending on the local custom; you might even be eaten by a giant cat).

Well, our Advent piece today is “Personent hodie”, which first appeared in a 1582 Finnish book of songs. It’s probably based on a 12^th Century song dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The first verse translates to:

On this day Earth shall ring
With the song children sing
To the Lord, Christ our King,
Born on Earth to save us
Him the Father gave us.

Here we have the Ely Cathedral choir singing it. Naturally, it’s arranged by John Rutter.