There’s a whole category of Christmas songs/carols that concern the bringing of gifts to the Christ child in Bethlehem. My own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, is singing a less-familiar one, “Son of Maria,” but more accurately “Son of the Mother” (“El Noi de la Mare“), which is also sometimes titled “Carol of the Gifts.” It is labeled as a traditional piece from Catalonia, a region of Spain that has seen its fair share of conflict over its periodic attempts to become an independent nation. I was surprised to see the number of carols (14) listed on Wikipedia as having come from this region; we are also singing the “Carol of the Birds,” which I plan to write about later on this blog. Because this is a traditional folk song, there is no “original” version. Instead, the song would have been passed down orally for generations and then finally written down, but these written lyrics vary immensely. Here’s a simple version used in a medley by the great Karl Jenkins; since it’s not being used as a stand-alone piece it needed to be fairly short. I’ll share some additional wording later in this post.
Son of Maria, Son of Maria.
What shall we give to the Son of Maria?
What can we give him that he will enjoy?
Bunches of grapes we will give to the infant,
baskets of figs for the beautiful boy.
Son of Maria.
What can we give to the Son of Maria?
What can we give to the beautiful boy?
Olives and walnuts and raisins and honey,
cherries and figs and some dates to enjoy.
Son of Maria.
Tampatam tam if the figs will not ripen,
what shall we do if the figs are still green?
Tampatam tam when our sins are forgiven,
Lovely ripe figs will at Easter be seen.
Tampatam tam when our sins are forgiven,
lovely ripe figs will at Easter be seen.
The sheet music says “English words by Carol Barratt after a translation from the Spanish”
Barratt is Karl Jenkins’ wife and a music educator in her own right.
There’s much fodder here for discussion. Let’s start with the obvious: a newborn baby can’t eat grapes, figs, olives, walnuts, etc.—he’s not going to “enjoy” them personally. The list of foodstuffs varies among differing versions, but milk doesn’t usually appear (although cheese, sometimes categorized as “mild,” does). So these gifts won’t really be “enjoyed” by the baby, not in a literal sense anyway. The list includes items that the givers enjoy and, if you consider the carol’s country of origin, ones typically produced by a southern Mediterranean country.
So far so good. But now we have to deal with this whole “green figs” idea. Figs are mentioned several times in the Bible, especially in a rather mysterious passage in the Christian New Testament which I’ll get to in a minute. In the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, which would include both Spain and Israel, figs are an important crop with two different harvest seasons for two different types. The first harvest ripens from May-June and the second around August-September. So, even if the birth of Jesus is seen as having happened in the fall, as some scholars speculate, that would have been perfect fig-ripening time, right? If indeed the birthday is seen as having happened in December, then there would be a problem about giving the Christ Child fresh figs, since they’re quite perishable. But there wouldn’t be a problem with the figs’ being green, or unripe. There wouldn’t be figs of any type available at that time of year. One would indeed need to wait until spring, when Palm Sunday and Easter occur, to be able to eat them.
So there must be something else going on here. Let’s take a look at the mysterious New Testament passage I mentioned before, which takes place at the time of what is now called Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter in Christian church calendars. I’ll quote from the Gospel of Matthew here:
Early the next morning Jesus was returning to the city. He was hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree alongside the road, he approached it anticipating a breakfast of figs. When he got to the tree, there was nothing but fig leaves. He said, “No more figs from this tree—ever!” The fig tree withered on the spot, a dry stick. (Matthew 21:18-19 The Message)
There are about five kabillion commentaries on this passage and the parallel one in the Gospel of Mark.1 My point here is not to parse out the theological implications but instead to note the passage’s (probable/possible) relationship to the text of the carol. In Jenkins’ simplified lyrics the relevant lines are:
Tampatam tam if the figs will not ripen,
what shall we do if the figs are still green?
Tampatam tam when our sins are forgiven,
Lovely ripe figs will at Easter be seen.
Other, more expansive versions of the lyrics make the connection to the fig story a little more explicit; here’s one:
What shall we do if the figs are not ripened?
What shall we do if the figs are still green?
If by Palm Sunday they still have not ripened,
Yet shall that ripeness at Easter be seen.
A number of other versions get the timeline wrong, putting Palm Sunday after Easter:
What shall we do if the figs are not ripened?
What shall we do if the figs are still green?
We shall not fret; if they’re not ripe for Easter,
On a Palm Sunday, ripe figs will be seen.
I’d say that the versions I’ve tracked down are roughly half-and-half on the correct and incorrect chronology. Somewhere along the line the terms got switched, and the change stuck. But what’s the point about the figs ripening before Easter in the first place? That question, at least, has somewhat of an answer: the birth of the Christ Child was only the beginning of his life and mission on earth, Christian theology says. Easter marks his resurrection from the dead, his triumph after the crucifixion. So . . . the “figs,” which in the carol could be said to represent the fruits of salvation, aren’t ripe, or fulfilled, until Easter. Someone knew the story of Jesus and the fig tree, and there was probably a version of the song with figs being one of the gifts to the Christ Child, so the wording took off from there. There’s no way to know the full timeline of textual transmission now.
The idea of bringing gifts to the baby in the manger comes from the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men, who show up in only one Gospel, the book of Matthew, carrying the famous gold, frankincense and myrrh. I’ve written quite extensively about these characters in the Christmas story and so won’t do so again here. Their act of generosity and worship has spawned many a carol and legend, with my favorite one being “The Little Drummer Boy.” (So sue me!) Somehow instruments crept into the story as well as actual gifts: the drummer boy drums, and Willie and Robin play the fife and drum in “Pat-a-Pan,” and in this carol we have some kind of sound effect in the ”tampatam tams.” I did find one lyrics website that translated the Catalan “tams” into supposedly English “boms.” Don’t know that that helps much. One more example of a gift-giving carol, though, says that the speaker has no outer gift: “In the Bleak Midwinter,” says, “But what I can I’ll give him,/Give to him my heart.”2
Here are a couple of performance videos. First, the Jenkins version of “Son of Maria” in a lovely Zoom version:
Then a performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the title “What Shall We Give” with an arrangement by Mack Wilberg and brand-new lyrics by his longtime collaborator, David Warner:
Here are those lyrics–I’m not sure that they’re an improvement, to be honest, but they show the immense variety that can show up in folk songs and their adaptations:
What shall we give to the babe in the manger?
What shall we offer the child in the stall?
Incense and spices and gold we’ve aplenty.
Are these the gifts for the king of us all?
What shall we give to the boy in the temple?
What shall we offer the man by the sea?
Palms at his feet and hosannas uprising,
Are these for him who will carry the tree?
What shall we give to the man who was offered,
Rising the third day and shedding his love?
Tears for his mercy we’ll weep at the manger,
Bathing the infant come down from above.
- A good one is from the excellent website GotQuestions.org, “Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?” ↩︎
- I can’t resist telling a story about this carol but am restricting it to a footnote: Apparently the year or so before I joined the Chorale they sang a version of “In the Bleak” that was . . . pretty bleak. The particular arrangement was very, very slow. And, to be honest, there’s no such thing as a peppy version. So, any time we’re struggling with a piece that seems kind of draggy, someone from that era will say, “Well, at least it’s not ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’!” I’m going to guess that what they sang was this one, arranged. by Mack Wilberg, as we sing quite a few of his arrangements. It’s lovely, but I can see how it might get a little snoozey. https://youtu.be/pTzqMi2AQF8?si=e_Kw9NXm_AfkvpcI ↩︎
