The Story behind ‘Away in a Manger’

Günther Simmermacher’s biography of a Christmas carol – Everybody knows the carol “Away In A Manger”, but nobody knows who wrote the words. One tradition has it that the lyrics were written around 500 years ago by Martin Luther, but there is no evidence that he did so, nor of any such hymn existing before 1882.

The origin of “Away In A Manger” — words and music — is in the United States, not Reformation-era Germany. And the origin of the Luther myth is American too.

In 1887, a hymn writer named James R Murray (1841–1905) set the words of “Away In A Manger” to music. When he published it in his Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses, he perpetuated the myth, stated in 1882 in a Boston newspaper called The Congregationalist, that Luther wrote the song and sang it every night to his children, and that German mothers had done so to their children ever since.

The trouble with that pious tale is that German mothers had never heard these words until they were imported from the States. They were first published in Germany, in an awkward translation, in 1934. In any case, there is a popular German Christmas hymn, still much beloved today, which actually was written by Luther, “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her”.

Why the writer of The Congregationalist told the Luther story is anybody’s guess; maybe he (given the era, it probably was a man) was thinking of “Vom Himmel hoch…” and was confused; maybe the looming 400th anniversary of Luther’s birth in 1883 overexcited his imagination; maybe he was a fantasist with a penchant for telling tall tales…

The reality is that the writer of the words of “Away In A Manger” remains anonymous. What we do know is that the carol was first published with a musical score in a hymnal by Pennsylvanian Lutherans in 1885. The melody did not catch on, which is where our friend Mr Murray comes in two years later. Further verses were added subsequently.

One carol, two melodies

There are two melodies for “Away In A Manger”. In the US, the melody composed by Murray is widely used (inexplicably attributed to “Carl Müller”). This version is slower and less cheerful than the melody that is popularly used in Britain and its old dominions, including South Africa. Where Murray’s version sounds like a lullaby, the one we commonly use resembles a more upbeat children’s song. Hear the United States version at youtu.be/ynul3OS_5dY, and the British below.

The British version also has its provenance in the US, where it was composed by William J Kirkpatrick and first published in 1895 in a collection titled Around the World with Christmas, representing the “German Fatherland”. That version was exported to Britain by a Baptist minister in 1905, and became popular there.

Kirkpatrick was born in 1838 in Ireland’s County Tyrone and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1854. A carpenter by trade, he soon was mentored in the music ministry of his Methodist parish. The veteran of the US Civil War (as was James R Murray) published more than a thousand hymns. He died in 1921.

Heresy in a carol?

One thing that we might not expect from a sweet carol such as “Away In A Manger” is an accusation of heresy. The controversy hinges (mostly) on the words “no crying he makes” in the second verse, with the supposed implication that Jesus was unlike all babies — who tend to cry a lot — and therefore not fully human.

If the carol was claiming that the baby Jesus never cried, the accusation of it propagating the heresy of Docetism (the idea that Jesus’ human form was merely an illusion) or Gnosticism (the idea that even in infancy, Jesus had special knowledge) might stick.

However, at the end of verse 1, baby Jesus is sleeping, head resting in hay. Verse 2 begins with the cattle waking the baby. In this snapshot of the peaceful Nativity scene, the baby does not cry — just as not all babies cry when they awake. The carol makes no wild claims that baby Jesus does not cry at other times. So, happily, there is no need to call a Church council to sort out heresies in “Away In A Manger”.

For more stories behind the carols see www.scross.co.za/category/features/biography-of-hymns/