Joys of Mary, The (Seven)

The (Seven) Joys of Mary: Roud 278: NOBC 131: This carol was very popular in England in the 19th century, appearing regularly in single sheet broadsides in the first decades of the century¹ and then later in the special Christmas issues which featured multiple carols and (sometimes coloured) illustrations.² The earliest record of the song is, however, in 1764 in the catalogue of the London printers Dicey and Marshall.³ There are versions still current today in both USA and Ireland, but it’s fair to say that this has become rather a specialist carol, not widely sung today in England.⁴

Although the carol looks to be of relatively modern construction with a ‘traditional tune’ added by Bramley & Stainer in 1871,⁵ this carol has deeper medieval roots with a few textual phrases being retained over centuries. A late medieval carol (15th century), described FIVE Joys that the Virgin Mary experiences – the Annunciation by Archangel Gabriel; the birth of her son Jesus; his Resurrection; his Ascension; and her own Assumption into heaven.⁶ The Sloane manuscript (MS2593) at the British Museum begins the story:⁷

(v1). The ferste joye, as I you telle
With Mary met Seynt Gabrielle
‘Heyl, Mary, I grete the well
With Fader and Sone and Holy Gost.’

The Second Joy in verse 2 has the birth ‘on Crystemesse Day’; the Third Joy is ‘when he rose fro ded to lyf’; the Fourth Joy when he is ‘in hevene in ryche aray’; and finally, the Fifth Joy is when ‘in hevene he crownyd his moder (mother)’. This is simple doctrinal instruction by song,⁸ but one that would not survive the protestant downgrading of the catholic church’s veneration of the Virgin Mary – at least not in this format.

The first textual element to go was the burden (or chorus) that went with this dance-song, which ran: ‘I may synge of a may (maiden) Of joyis five and merthis most’. The Annunciation and Assumption elements were also cut, but the song was then actually expanded to (at least) SEVEN Joys, drawing on Jesus’s miracles in rather simplistic terms to achieve rhyming effect:

‘…the joy of two to make the lame to go;
the joy of three to make the blind to see’ and so on.

It became a ‘number’ song to challenge children’s memory at Sunday School, no doubt.

When Cecil Sharp collected a version in Somerset in 1908 from Eliza Duddridge, she sang him Ten Joys, which included ‘bring the crooked straight’ to rhyme with ‘eight’ and ‘turn water into wine’ to rhyme with ‘nine’. She was 62 and said she had learned if from her grandfather, which takes her song back into the 18th century.⁹ Sharp published it in his English Folk-Carols but in 4/4 time rather than the bouncy 6/8 time of Stainer.

However, the interesting thing about many of the 19th century broadsides is that they resurrected the idea of a chorus, whereby the last line of each joy (miracle) was repeated thus:

(Joy of two) to make the lame to go;
To make the lame to go, good man,
How happy may you be,
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
And Christ to eternity.

This hark back to the last line of each verse of the medieval carol (see above) is perhaps true testament to folk memory and imagination.