{"id":5148,"date":"2023-12-09T12:19:08","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T19:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5148"},"modified":"2023-12-09T12:24:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T19:24:44","slug":"tree-vs-tree-at-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5148","title":{"rendered":"Tree vs. Tree at Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

It occurred to me years ago that the ancient Christmas carol \u201cThe Holly and the Ivy\u201d really has nothing to do with ivy, even though ivy is mentioned side by side with holly in the title and the refrain. It\u2019s almost as though something was left out of the lyrics: <\/p>\n

\u201cThe holly and the ivy, when they are both full-grown,\u201d<\/p>\n

Ok, I give. When the holly and the ivy are both full grown, then what?<\/em> The holly has the berries, the blossoms, the thorns, and in the full version, the bark. Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. The ivy has\u2026nothing.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t thought about that silly little issue in a lot of years, until KBAQ played a song this morning called \u201dIvy, Chief of Trees, It Is,\u201d by British composer Sarah Cattley<\/a> (with a little help from Yoda, there might be.) You can find a very nice performance here<\/a> with great harmony. Lyrics are here<\/a>. The Latin \u201cveni coronaberis\u201d means \u201cCome and be crowned.\u201d<\/p>\n

So here we are: Two Christmas carols about trees that wear the crown. Will there be civil war in the woods? A duel? A fistfight?<\/p>\n

Wait. Hold on. Something weird is going on here: Holly is a tree. Ivy is ground cover, or at best something crawling up the sides of elite college buildings. A little snooping on Wikipedia<\/a> yielded a clue: An older carol that may have been originally penned in Middle English, called \u201cThe Contest of the Ivy and the Holly.\u201d The lyrics in modern English are these:<\/p>\n

Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a-cold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is. <\/p>\n

Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc <\/p>\n

Ivy hath chapped fingers, she caught them from the cold,
So might they all have, aye, that with ivy hold.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc <\/p>\n

Holly hath berries red as any rose,
The forester, the hunter, keep them from the does.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc <\/p>\n

Ivy hath berries black as any sloe;
There come the owl and eat him as she go.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc <\/p>\n

Holly hath birds a fair full flock,
The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc <\/p>\n

Good ivy, what birds hast thou?
None but the owlet that cries how, how.
Nay, ivy, nay, etc<\/em> <\/p>\n

(A quick query shows that \u201claverock\u201d is what they called the lark in Chaucer\u2019s era.)<\/p>\n

Wikipedia suggests that holly and ivy are emblematic of the male and female principles. So it\u2019s not a fight over a crown; it\u2019s the battle of the sexes, with the deck severely stacked against women. I also wonder if \u201cThe Holly and the Ivy\u201d as we sing it today was sanitized back in the 19th Century, leaving out the verses that slander poor ivy: Holly stands inside, warm by the fire; ivy is left outside to freeze, and so on. If such sanitizing was ever done, I see no mention of it online. So the mystery remains.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking around for interesting Christmas-related topics and will post the best here. So stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It occurred to me years ago that the ancient Christmas carol \u201cThe Holly and the Ivy\u201d really has nothing to do with ivy, even though ivy is mentioned side by side with holly in the title and the refrain. It\u2019s almost as though something was left out of the lyrics: \u201cThe holly and the ivy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noneoftheabove"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5151,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148\/revisions\/5151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}