Als I Lay Upon a Nith (As I Lay Upon a Night II)

DESCRIPTION: "As I lay upon a night, Alone in my longing, I thought I saw a wondrous sight, A maiden (her) child rocking." The mother sings a lullaby; he asks her to tell her his story. She tells of Gabriel's visit. (He tells her his future). With a "lullay" chorus
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1372 (Commonplace Book of John de Grimestone, National Library of Scotland MS. Advocates 18.7.21)
KEYWORDS: religious mother Jesus MiddleEnglish lullaby
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #149, pp. 103-106, "(Als I lay upon a nith)" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #352
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #606
ADDITIONAL: Karen Saupe, editor, _Middle English Marian Lyrics_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1998, #25, pp. 71-76, "(Als I lay upon a nit)" (1 text, mostly from Grimestone)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSGrimestone}, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS. Advocates 18.7.21, John de Grimestone's Commonplace Book, folio 3
MANUSCRIPT: {MSCambridgeS54}, Cambridge, St. John’s College MS. S.54 (Cambridge University 259), folio 4
MANUSCRIPT: Cambridge, University Library, MS. Additional 5943, folio 169
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, MS. Harley 2330, folio 120
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mary With Her Young Son" (theme of the young Jesus foretelling his future)
NOTES [941 words]: Deciding whether to include Middle English pieces in the Index is always difficult, but few were harder for me than this. The manuscripts were not much help -- the earliest, the Grimestone manuscript, is an important monument of Middle English literature, but there isn't much evidence that its contents are traditional. The St. John's College manuscript is interesting and contains several carols that seem traditional, but the other two manuscripts are not noteworthy and don't seem to have much in the way of traditional material.
On the other hand, there are four of them, which is a very high number for a Middle English carol. And they range over a century or more in time (Grimestone's manuscript is from c. 1372; the other three are all fifteenth century). And the forms differ dramatically:
- Grimestone's is 37 stanzas long, plus a chorus "lullay, lullay, la, lullay, My dere moder, lullay." There are marginal references assigning parts to "Iesu," "Christus loquitur," "Iesus," and "Maria." It starts with Mary rocking Jesus and him asking her "Wa me sal befalle / Hereafter wan I cum to eld" (i.e. what will befall him when he grows up). Mary recounts the events of the Annunciation, of his birth, and of the visit of the shepherds, and says that that is all she knows. That occupies the first 15 stanzas. Jesus then tells her what he will do; this takes 21 stanzas. The last stanza is a summary. (For more on the Grimestone version, although not a full text, see Wilson, #5, p. 2.; for more on Grimestone in general, see the notes to "The Coventry Carol" or Wilson or the Bibliography notes on this manuscript.) Wenzel, pp. 137, spends much time on the Grimestone version, calling it "first of all a post-nativity scene witnessed by the speaker whose only characterization is his unspecified longing." "Like a very human baby, Christ will not fall asleep unless his mother sings him a lullaby as don modres alle ([lines] 12), and Mary responds by protesting her limited experience (22, 57-60) and then recalls what little she knows: the Annunciation (21-48) and the Nativity (49-56). At that point Jesus takes over and teaches her what else to sing (62)," describing events from his circumcision to the Ascension -- and adds Mary's Assumption and the Last Judgment. Mary interjects joy at the thought that he might be a king (105-108) and sorrow at the thought of the Passion (127-128). There is also some discussion between the narrator of the song and Joseph.
- The St. John's copy, the one with the strongest traditional associations, has the chorus and nine stanzas approximating the equivalent stanzas in Grimestone.
- The Harley manuscript has the chorus and just five stanzas
- The Cambridge University Library copy has only the chorus and opening stanza.
Is that enough reason to consider it traditional? I don't know. The whole thing breaks into three items, a lullaby, Mary's story to Jesus, and Jesus's account to Mary; the latter is much like later pieces such as "Mary With Her Young Son." Were the three originally one item, with the ending chopped off in the shorter versions? Or is the lullaby older, with Jesus's prophecy grafted on to the text in Grimestone? I am far from sure, but my slight inclination is to suspect the latter, in which case the lullaby is traditional, and Mary's telling to Jesus might be as well. So I'm including the song, very hesitantly.
It would appear, from the allusions, that the author of the long form of this had the Gospel of Luke before him, but perhaps not the others. The annunciation by Gabriel is in Luke 1:26-38 and has no parallel in the other Gospels. The story of Elizabeth bearing John the Baptist is also found only in Luke 1. The shepherds that came at Jesus's birth are in Luke 2:8-20. The circumcision (being "kot... with a ston In a wol tendre place") is in Luke 2:21. Simeon seeing Jesus in the Temple when the boy is forty days old is in Luke 2:28-35, with the sword piercing Mary's side being mentioned in 2:25. Jesus in the Temple at age twelve is Luke 2:41-51. Jesus is said to have begun his work when about thirty years old in Luke 3:23. The Ascension is sketched in Luke 24:50-51 and and told in more detail in Acts 1. Note that none of the infancy material of Matthew (the star, the magi, the massacre of the innocents) is mentioned.
It is worth remembering that, in the era before printing (and this song, in all its forms, precedes printing by at least a decade), books were expensive. A poor parish, if it had any religious volume at all, would have only a lectionary, not a true Bible. And even if it did have some part of a continuous-text Bible, it would probably be just a copy of the Gospels, not a complete New Testament, let alone an Old. And it was a manuscript, with no index or concordance and very possibly no cross-references. And it might be damaged, or include only one Gospel. By the looks of this song, the compiler of the long section at the end of the Grimestone Manuscript read through chapters 1-3 of Luke, but took the rest from general knowledge of Jesus's career (the rest of the details are found in multiple gospels -- although all are found in Luke).
The one exception is the reference to Jesus taking Mary to heaven with him (the Assumption of Mary). While the Assumption is listed as one of her "Joys" (see "The Joys of Mary"), it is not biblical -- but was a well-established legend by this time.
Saupe suggests that the tune in Rossell Hope Robbins, editor, Early English Christmas Carols, Columbia University Press, 1961, #27, pp. 73, "Lullay, Lullay," is this. But it's so short that I'd say it is impossible to tell. - RBW
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