Wandering dangerously close to conspiracy theory territory, our ancient folk songs correspondent Angus Young may have been drinking.
“How about writing a Christmas special?” said Mr Curiosity as he took a sip of mulled wine before munching his way through yet another mince pie.
“Heard the one about a classic festive carol having a supposed link with Hull?” I ventured.
“Get writing lad!” he boomed through a mouthful of sweet mince and pastry.
In 1833 English lawyer and historian William Sandys published an anthology of traditional carols spanning more than 300 years which he had gathered from various sources, adding his own words to many. Among them was I Saw Three Ships which was first printed in the 17th century and is believed to be even older having started life as a sea shanty-style English folk song.
Still popular today, Sandys’ version tells the story of a fleet of vessels arriving in Bethlehem on Christmas Day carrying “Our Saviour Christ and His Lady”. However, it neatly skirts over the fact that land-locked Bethlehem is actually 26 miles from the nearest port. It also fails to explain why three ships were needed for just two VIP passengers. Sandys’ version is just one of many in existence. As fans will testify, one of folk music’s charms is the organic nature of many traditional songs featuring ever-changing lyrics over time.
Another version surfaced in 1895 as featured in A Garland of Country Songs, a book compiled by Anglican priest and folk song collector Sabine Baring-Gould. This one had been documented by artist Louis Davis, who provided the illustrations of the book, after hearing it sung by “the boatmen upon the Humber.” It’s not clear where or when London-based Davis came across these singing sailors but he reportedly had some difficulty understanding their local dialect. As a result, his transcript of the words refer to the ships carrying “three crawns (crowns)” and heading to “Koln on the Rhine”. As well as shifting the geography of the song to an unidentified port in Europe, it also ditches any reference to Christmas Day.
So what were the Humber boatmen singing about? One theory behind the song is that it refers to other characters in the Biblical Christmas story – the Magi, otherwise known as Three Wise Men or the Three Kings. Legend has it that having all conveniently died at the same time, their sacred bones were first kept in Constantinople and then Milan before being taken in 1164 to Cologne Cathedral where they remain today housed in a shrine. Back in the day a journey from Milan to Cologne would have either involved an arduous slog by foot over the Alps or a lengthy sea voyage via the Mediterranean and the Atlantic before entering the Rhine from the North Sea. If the latter happened, splitting the precious bones between three ships would have made sense from an insurance point of view.
As it was, this journey by sea seems to have eventually worked its way into traditional English folk music. According to legend, each Magi’s skull was topped off with a golden crown and these three crowns also feature in the coat of arms of the city Cologne. Sounds familiar? Yes, Hull’s official coat of arms also features three golden crowns having first been used here in the early 15th century.
One of several theories about their origin is the established trading links between Hull and Cologne in the Middle Ages leading to something of a copycat design being adopted for our own coat of arms. Did this connection also pave the way for a song to be passed down through the generations of local men of the sea?
Hull-born folk singers Paul and Liz Davenport included their own take on the so-called “Crawn variant” of I See Three Ships on their latest album Wait No Man. They even suggest the ships might have used the Humber to take shelter from a storm while en route to Cologne. If the ships did nip into the estuary, they didn’t sail into Hull as it didn’t really exist in 1164 although Hedon was a thriving port at the time and would have certainly provided safe harbour.
Now you might be thinking this is all a bit impossible to prove and you would be right. We’re talking about a 2,000-year-old Biblical story, an 860-year-old journey thousands of miles away and a 500-year-old folk song all being mashed together like a bad sherry trifle. Then there’s the late Alan Boyson’s epic Three Ships mosaic on the old Co-op store in the city centre. Now a Grade II listed structure and commonly believed to represent Hull’s fishing industry, is it really a re-telling the story of the Magi through one million cubes of coloured Italian glass?
Perhaps I’ve had one too many glasses of Mr Curiosity’s mulled wine. After all, when it comes to religion I’m firmly in the Monty Python camp. He’s not The Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Angus Young
Editor’s Note: Angus has been sent for a lie down.