"Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star" is a Marian hymn written by Father

John Lingard John Lingard (5 February 1771 – 17 July 1851) was an English people, English Catholic Church, Catholic priest and historian, the author of ''The History of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII'', an ei ...

(1771–1851), a Catholic priest and historian who, through the works of

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an Agrarianism, agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restr ...

, helped to smooth the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act in England.

History

Loosely based on the medieval Latin plainchant , the hymn is generally sung to the modified traditional English melody ''Stella''. This melody was published in 1851 by Henri Frederick Hemy in his "''Easy Hymn Tunes for Catholic Schools''". The name ''Stella'' comes from the village of that name near

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

where Hemy was the organist in a local church. According to one account, after playing the organ for evening benediction on Sunday at Stella, he called into the (old) Board Inn at the foot of Stella Lane with some companions and seated at the piano first played his rendition of the tune. J. Vincent Higginson described it as "one of the oldest English vernacular hymns commonly found in Catholic hymnals."Budwey, Stephanie. ''Sing of Mary: Giving Voice to Marian Theology and Devotion'', Liturgical Press, 2014

Nautical imagery

A ship was an early Christian symbol. The word "nave", used to describe the main body of a church, is from the medieval

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word ''navis'', meaning "ship", possibly with some reference to the "Ship of St Peter" or the Ark of Noah.

Catherine of Siena Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), known as Catherine of Siena, was an Italian mystic and pious laywoman who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. Canonized in 1461, ...

described the Church as a ship.Wiseman, Denis Vincent O.P., "Mary in the Life and Thought of Catherine of Siena", ''Marian Library Studies'', n.s.27, 2005-2006
/ref> The image was transferred to the individual travelling on life's stormy or tempestuous seas. This motif of a ship can also be found in the first stanza of ''Mother Dear, O Pray For Me'', as well as in Matthew 8:22-34, where Christ calmed the storm for his apostles who were travelling by boat, and walked on the water with St Peter. Moreover, in Matthew 4:18-22, it says that many of the apostles were fishermen and that Christ made St Peter and St Andrew fishers of men.

Music

Tolkien

Much has been written of the influence of Tolkien's Catholicism on the imagery he employs. In his

legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''The Lord of the Rings'', and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of ''The Silmari ...

, Varda, also known as Elbereth, is one of the

Valar The Valar (; singular Vala) are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. They are "angelic powers" or "gods" subordinate to the one God ( Eru Ilúvatar). The '' Ainulindalë'' describes how some of the Ainur choose to enter the ...

and the highest of the "guardians".

Peter Kreeft Peter John Kreeft (; born March 16, 1937) is an American professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He a ...

sees her as one of the clearest reflections of Roman Catholic Marian devotion in Tolkien's work.

, ''The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings'' (2005)
p. 75
citing '' Letters'' (ed. 1981) no. 213, p. 288, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2005, Both Marjorie Burns and Stratford Caldecott see in the Elvish hymn '' A Elbereth Gilthoniel'' an echo of the Marian hymn, ''Hail Queen of Heaven''.Burns, Marjorie. "Saintly and Distant Mothers", Kerry, Paul E., ''The Ring and the Cross: Christianity and The Lord of the Rings'', p. 251, Rowman & Littlefield, 2011
According to Caldecott, "Tolkien would have been familiar with one of the most popular Catholic hymns from his childhood, the tone and mood of which are markedly close to those of Tolkien’s song to Elbereth."

O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy Starlight on the Western seas.Caldecott, Stratford. "The Lord & Lady of the Rings", ''Touchstone'', January/February 2002
/ref>

References

External links

Full Text

Sheet Music at Hymnary

St. Charles' Choir rendition
{{Marian hymns Marian hymns 19th-century hymns