Out of the Blossom Sprang a Thorn

DESCRIPTION: "Out of the blossom sprang a thorn, When God himself would be born." A spring (Jesus?) comes from a well (Mary?). Three kings come to visit, bearing their gifts. Refrain: "Deo patri sit gloria" or "That was born of Marie"/"And his mother Marie"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1430 (British Library -- Sloane MS. 2593)
KEYWORDS: religious Jesus travel MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #123, pp. 79-80, "(no title)" (2 texts)
Rickert-AncientEnglishChristmasCarols, pp. 117-120, "Alleluia! alleluia!"; "Out of the Blossom Sprang a Thorn" (2 texts)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #2730, 3527
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #4333, #5566
ADDITIONAL: Roman Dyboski, _Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book_, Kegan Paul, 1907 (there are now multiple print-on-demand reprints), #24, pp. 12-3, "(Alleluya, Alleluia, Deo patri sit gloria)" (1 text)
Richard Greene, editor, _A Selection of English Carols_, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1962, #28, pp. 86-87, "(Alleluya, alleluia)" (1 text)
Carleton Brown, editor, _Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century_, Oxford University Press, 1939, #88, pp. 126-127,"Balthazer, Melchior and Jasper" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSSloane2593}, London, British Library, MS. Sloane 2593, folio 12 [IMEV #2730]
MANUSCRIPT: {MSRichardHill}, The Richard Hill Manuscript, Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354, folio 222 [IMEV #3527]
NOTES [302 words]: Although no longer found in tradition, this seems to have been popular in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, surviving in two very important manuscripts. It is in the Hill MS. (Balliol College, Oxford, 354) and in Sloane MS. 2593, an important collection which contains many folk songs.
What is more, the two texts are so different as to have hardly a word in common (e.g. Sloane mentions the legendary names of the three kings, Balthazar, Melchior, and Gaspar; Balliol calls them the oldest, middle, youngest). There seem to be corruptions in both texts (e.g. Sloane, the earlier text, has in stanza 3 "Out of the welle sprng a streme From patriarck to Jerusalem" -- and no one seems to have a clue what "patriarck" is). And Greene, p. xcvii, suggests that the method of naming the kings is derived from the folk song method of incremental repetition of Forms (e.g. "There were three sisters lived in a hall").
What's more, Greene, p. 376, says the Sloane manuscript is "disturbed" here, implying that more might be learned if it were in its proper form.
On this very tentative basis I have included the song.
For more on the "three kings" (who may not have been three, and whose names are unknown) see the notes to "The Golden Carol (The Three Kings)."
Greene, p. 376, suggests that the blossom and thorn is a variation of the Rod/Root of Jesse symbolism.
Brown, p. 324, mentions a "figure of the Wounds [of Jesus] as wells." Brown does not apply the figure to this verse, but the well must mean SOMETHING. My first thought was that it meant Mary. Then I thought of Jesus as the source of Living Water in John 4:10-14. But the idea of the Wounds of Christ seems like a third possibility that fits well here.
For more on manuscript Sloane 2593, see the notes to "Robyn and Gandeleyn" [Child 115]. - RBW
Bibliography

Brown: Carleton Brown, editor, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, Oxford University Press, 1939
Greene: Richard Leighton Greene, editor, The Earliest English Carols, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1935

Last updated in version 5.3
File: MSOBlSpT

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography