‘The Friendly Beasts’ Christmas tune debuted in 1926

Highly acclaimed American sacred music composers Helen and Clarence Dickinson introduced their countrymen to a unique Christmas song in 1926. “The Friendly Beasts” was one of the tunes included in a musical production that premiered during the 1926 Christmas season.

 

The Dickinsons co-wrote “The Coming of the Prince of Peace: A Nativity Play with Ancient Christmas Carols” along with William Sloane Coffin for H.W. Gray of New York City, a publishing company that specializes in liturgical, school and community music. 

“The Friendly Beasts” song was based on a translation of the lyrics of an old European Christmas song. The translator was a relatively unknown poet named Robert Davis. 

His words have been preserved and memorialized in song by vocalists ranging from Peter, Paul and Mary to the Cedarmont Kids. Their performances are archived online.

 

The tune begins: 

Jesus our brother kind and good

Was humbly born in a stable rude

And the friendly beasts around him stood…

 Then, the focus turns to those animals…and their respective roles associated with the birthing of the child, with these abbreviated lyrics: 

“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 cow all white and red

I gave Him my manger for a bed

I gave Him my hay to pillow His head….

 

“I” said the sheep with a curly horn

I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm

He wore my coat on that Christmas morn….

 

“I” said the dove from the rafters high

Cooed Him to sleep that He should not cry

We cooed Him to sleep my love and I….

 

“I” said the camel all yellow and black

Over the desert upon my back

I brought Him a gift in the wise men’s pack.

 

The short song ends with the summary: 

Thus every beast remembering it well

In the stable dark was so proud to tell

Of the gifts that they gave Emmanuel.

The Dickinsons wrote hundreds of chorales and anthems for church choirs during their musical careers. 

Helen Adell Snyder Dickinson was educated at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She earned her doctorate degree from Heidelberg University in Germany in an era (circa 1910) “when women were not generally welcomed in graduate philosophy classes” at Heidelberg. 

She was a well-known and frequent lecturer at Union Seminary in New York City. Her husband, Clarence Dickinson, performed as the organist at New York City’s Brick Presbyterian Church for half a century.