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The Carnal and the Crane

[ Roud 306 ; Child 55 ; Ballad Index C055 ; trad.]

Peter Bellamy sang the carol The Carnal and the Crane unaccompanied on his third solo LP, The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate. A.L. Lloyd commented in the album's sleeve notes:

It's possible that several of our well-known folk carols—such as Herod and the Cock, King Pharaoh (about the flight to Egypt), and The Miraculous Harvest—were once parts of a single lengthy religious epic, that ultimately broke up into a number of short ballads. Or were they all separate pieces that at some stage got grouped together in the form of a dialogue between a crane and a knowing crow (carnal = crow, as in French: corneille) ? In Child's collection, the version has thirty verses and it comprises a whole chain or garland of international apocryphal Gospel legends. The present version, complete in itself but comprising only the opening part of the full set, comes mainly from Mr Hirons of Dilwyn, Herefordshire, and was noted by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1909. Probably the song is old, but we've no trace of any version before the nineteenth century. The tune, in a score of transformations, has served as a vehicle for folk carols for many centuries in various parts of Europe.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band recorded The Carnal and the Crane in 2001 for their CD Gold Frankincense & Myrhh and sang it some years later live at Oxford Town Hall. A recording of this concert was published in November 2005 on the CD and DVD An Evening of Carols and Capers.

Lyrics

Peter Bellamy sings The Carnal and the Crane

As I passed by a river side,
And there as I did reign,
In argument I chanced to hear
A carnal and a crane.

The carnal said unto the crane,
“If all the world should turn,
Before we had the Father,
But now we have the Son!”

“From whence does the Son come,
From where and from what place?”
He said, “In a manger,
Between an ox and ass.”

“I pray thee,” said the carnal,
“Tell me before thou go,
Was not the mother of Jesus Christ
Conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost?”

She was the purest virgin,
And the cleanest from all sin;
She was the handmaid of our Lord
And the mother of our king.”

“Where is the golden cradle
That Christ was rocked in?
And where are the silken sheets
That Jesus was wrapt in?”

“A manger was the cradle
That Christ was rocked in.
The provender the asses left
So sweetly he slept on.”