"The Friendly Beasts" is a

traditional A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

Christmas song Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...

about the gifts that a

donkey The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a ...

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

, and

dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

give to Jesus at the Nativity. The song seems to have originated in 12th-century France, set to the melody of the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

song "Orientis Partibus". The song is also known as "The Song of the Ass", The Donkey Carol", "The Animal Carol", and "The Gift of the Animals". The current English words were written by Robert Davis (1881-1950) in the 1920s."The Friendly Beasts"
at The Hymns and Carols of Christmas They appear in ''The Coming of the Prince of Peace: A Nativity Play with Ancient Christmas Carols'', arranged by William Sloane Coffin and Helen A. and Clarence Dickinson, published in 1920 by The H. W. Gray Company. In the play, the lyrics for the song "The Friendly Beasts" are attributed to Robert Davis; the song is also ascribed "XII Century , Arranged by Clarence Dickinson". The lyrics run:

Jesus our brother, strong and good, Was humbly born in a stable rude, And the friendly beasts around Him stood, Jesus our brother, strong and good. I, said the donkey shaggy and brown, I carried His mother up hill and down I carried her safely to Bethlehem town; I, said the donkey shaggy and brown. I, said the cow all white and red, I gave Him my manger for His bed, I gave Him my hay to pillow His head; I, said the cow all white and red. I, said the sheep with curly horn, I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm, He wore my coat on Christmas morn; I, said the sheep with curly horn. I, said the dove, from the rafters high, Cooed Him to sleep that He should not cry. We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I; I, said the dove, from the rafters high. And every beast, by some good spell, In the stable dark was glad to tell Of the gift he gave Immanuel; The gift he gave Immanuel.

Covers and translation

Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own rad ...

included the song on his 1952 album ''

Christmas Day in the Morning ''Christmas Day in the Morning'' (Decca DL 5428, 1952) is the first of several Christmas albums by the folk singer Burl Ives. Subtitled ''Yuletide Folk Songs'', this album includes seven traditional Christmas carols, from the well-known "What Chi ...

''. Since then, it has been recorded by many other artists, including

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

; The Harry Simeone Chorale;

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...

(Belafonte and Cash use the title "The Gifts They Gave");

Risë Stevens Risë Stevens (; June 11, 1913 – March 20, 2013) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano and actress. Beginning in 1938, she sang for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for more than two decades during the 1940s and 1950s. She was most ...

; Danny Taddei;

Peter, Paul and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's repertoir ...

; and

Sufjan Stevens Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nomi ...

Brian Stokes Mitchell Brian Stokes Mitchell (born October 31, 1957) is an American actor and singer. A powerful baritone, he has been one of the central leading men of the Broadway theater since the 1990s. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2000 for ...

in 2008 sang this song with the

Mormon Tabernacle Choir The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is an American choir, acting as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It has performed in the Salt Lake Tabernacle for ov ...

, complete with donkey, cow, and sheep "voices".

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...

recorded it on his 1992 platinum album ''

Beyond the Season ''Beyond the Season'' is the first Christmas album by American country music artist Garth Brooks. It was released on August 25, 1992, however it was the first album on Liberty Records, and peaked at number 2 on both of '' Billboard'' magazine's ...

''. "The Friendly Beasts / L'Amikaj Bestoj" is a (free) simple score with all seven verses in English plus an Esperanto translation by Gene Keyes. "The Friendly Beasts / L'Amikaj Bestoj"
at GeneKeyes.com. Retrieved October 2015

References

Songs about animals Burl Ives songs Peter, Paul and Mary songs Christmas carols Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown 12th-century hymns {{Folk-song-stub

Covers and translation

See also

References