The Bitter Withy

Of all the different aspects of Christmas in this country, one of the most interesting (to me, at least) is how forms of pre-Christian religion became entwined with the fast-spreading worship of Jesus. Ever had a Yule log, chocolate or otherwise? Ever hung up mistletoe? These things never got mentioned in the Nativity, principally because they were Germanic pagan customs that the Church never managed to stamp out. Ever wondered why the still-popular carol The Holly & The Ivy is so preoccupied with comparing the birth of Jesus to things like the sun, hardy shrubbery and the local wildlife? Yes, again, the pagan peasantry found a handy compromise between the seemingly disparate theistic concepts of cyclical Nature and a Jewish baby with magical powers.

In England particularly, the Christian missionaries were up against it from the start. Faced with Saxons who had very limited hobbies (booze; killing; more booze) and their deities who had very limited emotional capacity (vengeance; anger; more vengeance) they were prone to tolerate pagan superstitions and myths as long as there was at least some acknowledgement of Christ thrown into the bargain. So, from this religious hodge-podge, England produced some fascinating and very persistent folklore; in many songs and tales down the centuries, Jesus is portrayed not as the Biblical redeemer, but rather as the successor to Woden and other popular Teutonic smiters.

Take The Bitter Withy, that most English of folk songs, which echoes with vengeful fury and simmering class conflict. In it, the child Jesus is a young English commoner who goes out one day to play football (as you do down on the estate). However, when he invites three boys of the local nobility to join him, they bully and belittle him for his low birth. Not to be outdone, Jesus scampers off and builds a bridge made of sunbeams - seriously - over the nearest river, and calmly walks over it; having done so, he invites the rich boys to cross...and then promptly wishes it out of existence from beneath them, chortling his divine balls off as they drown. Hadn't quite got the hang of that turning-the-other-cheek business yet, you feel.

It all concludes with the Virgin Mary - that one who's always meek and mild - thrashing the hide off Jesus with the branch of a tree. If this is increasingly sounding less like the Gospel and more like an episode of Shameless, that's understandable; it is, as I said, a uniquely English tale. You can hear the song performed here by Lisa Knapp.


As it fell out upon a bright holiday
Small hail from the sky did fall;
Our Saviour asked his mother dear
If he might play at ball.

"At ball? At ball? My own dear son?
It's time that you were gone;
Don't let me hear of any complaints
At night when you come home."

So it's up the hill, and down the hill
Our sweet young Saviour ran,
Until he met three rich young lords
All playing in the sun.

"Good morn, good morn, good morn," said they,
"Good morning," then said he,
"And which of you three rich young lords
Will play at ball with me?"

"We are all lords' and ladies' sons
Born in a bower and hall,
And you are nothing but a poor maid's child
Born in an ox's stall."

Sweet Jesus turned him round about,
He did neither laugh nor smile,
But the tears came trickling from his eyes
Like water from the sky.

"Well, though you're lords' and ladies' sons
All born in your bower and hall
I'll prove to you at your latter end
I'm an angel above you all"

So he built him a bridge from the beams of the sun
And over the river danced he;
Them rich young lords followed after him
And drowned they was all three

So up the hill and down the hill
Three rich young mothers run
Crying "Mary mild, fetch home your child
For ours he's drowned each one."

"Oh I've been down in yonder town
Far as the holy well,
I took away three sinful souls
And dipped them deep in hell."

So Mary mild fetched home her child,
She laid him across her knee
And with a bundle of withy twigs
She gave him thrashes three.

"Oh bitter withy, oh bitter withy
You've caused me to smart.
And the withy shall be the very first tree
To perish at the heart."