Away in a Manger

Words

The popularity of the carol has led to many variants in the words, which are discussed in detail below. The following are taken from Kirkpatrick (1895):

Variants

Almost every line in the carol has recorded variants. The most significant include the following:

First and second verses

The origin of the words is obscure. An early appearance was on March 2, 1882, in the "Childrens' Corner" section of the anti-masonic journal The Christian Cynosure. Under the heading "Luther's Cradle Song", an anonymous author contributed the first two verses, writing:

The following hymn, composed by Martin Luther for his children, is still sung by many of the German mothers to their little ones.

A near-identical article appeared in the November 1883 issue of The Sailors' Magazine and Seamen's Friend.

Another early publication is in Little Pilgrim Songs, a book of music for young children whose preface is dated November 10, 1883. Little Pilgrim Songs includes a similar claim that the song was written "by Martin Luther for his own children".

An article in the May 1884 issue of The Myrtle, a periodical of the Universalist Publishing House in Boston, Massachusetts., also included the carol, stating that:

Martin Luther, the great German reformer, who was born four hundred years ago the 10th of next November, composed the following hymn for his children; and it is still sung by many German mothers to their little ones.

All four sources include almost-identical text of the first two verses, with no music. Little Pilgrim Songs and The Myrtle both suggest the melody of Home! Sweet Home!.

Third verse

The third stanza, "Be near me, Lord Jesus", is absent from the known early sources. Its first known appearance was in Gabriel's Vineyard Songs (1892), where it was set to a melody by Charles H. Gabriel (simply marked "C"). Gabriel credited the entire text to Luther and gave it the title "Cradle Song". Decades later, a story was published attributing the third verse to John T. MacFarland:

Bishop William F. Anderson has given the story of the writing of the third stanza:

When I was Secretary of the Board of Education, 1904–08, I wanted to use "Away in a manger," which I found with the designation "Martin Luther's Cradle Song," in the Children's Day program one year. It had but two stanzas, 1 and 2. Dr. John T. McFarland, then Secretary of our Board of Sunday Schools, was my near neighbor in his office at 150 Fifth Avenue (New York). I asked him to write a third stanza. He went to his office and within an hour brought me the third stanza beginning, "Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay." I used it, which was the first time it was ever published. I am pleased to see that it is now being used very widely. The honor of it belongs to that great and good man, Dr. John T. McFarland.

Since this story dates the composition of the stanza to 1904–1908, over a decade after its first known appearance, Hill judges that "the 1892 publication [of Gabriel's Vineyard Songs] renders the Bishop's story suspect, and additional evidence must be found before McFarland can be safely credited with the writing of the third stanza". It has been suggested that Gabriel may have written the third stanza himself and attributed it to Luther.

Popularity

By Christmas of 1883, "Luther's Cradle Song" was already being performed as a recitation as part of a Sunday School celebration in a church in Nashville. The early popularity of the hymn may also be reflected in a report (published in 1884, but covering the year 1883) from an American mission in Maharashtra, India, stating that "[t]he hymns and cradle songs learned in the school, are often sung at home. One woman said that 'Hush my dear,' and 'Mother mine,' were heard all day in their alley, and now more lately, Luther's cradle hymn, 'Away in a manger, no cot for his bed,' has a place with them and is a favorite." By 1891, Hill writes, "the carol was sweeping the country [the USA]", with at least four musical settings published that year.

Spurious attribution to Luther

The great majority of early publications, including the earliest known to us, ascribe the words to German Protestant reformer Martin Luther. Many go so far as to title the carol "Luther's Cradle Song" or "Luther's Cradle Hymn", to describe the English words as having been translated from Luther, or to speak of its alleged popularity in Germany. The claim of Luther's authorship continued to be made well into the twentieth century, but it is now rejected as spurious for the following reasons:

Richard Hill, in a comprehensive study of the carol written in 1945, suggested that "Away in a Manger" might have originated in "a little play for children to act or a story about Luther celebrating Christmas with his children", likely connected with the 400th anniversary of the reformer's birth in 1883.

Theological ambiguity

In the second verse, the line "no crying he makes" is considered by some to fall into the heresy of docetism, with the line's implication that, by not crying, Jesus could not have been fully human as is taught by orthodox Christian doctrine. However, as the first two lines of that verse make clear, the context is that of a newborn having fallen asleep sometime after birth (see last line of v.1), and being later awakened by the lowing of nearby cattle. In this situation he does not "fuss" or cry. Some infants when napping usually do so and others wake and lie quietly (unless hungry, wet, or otherwise distressed), so there is nothing "not fully human" about Jesus' behavior.

"Mueller"

The most popular musical setting in the United States is commonly known as "Mueller". The melody was first published, under the title "Luther's Cradle Hymn", by James R. Murray in his collection Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887).

Murray included a claim that the hymn was "[c]omposed by Martin Luther for his children". Hill writes:

Wherever he got the ideas expressed in the heading, Mr. Murray made one serious tactical mistake in saying that Luther "composed" the hymn, and then placing only his own initials where the composer's name is normally given. As a consequence, his fellow compilers of song books apparently supposed that all he had done was to arrange the accompaniment.

As a result of this "tactical error", Murray's melody appeared, without credit, in several subsequent publications. By 1914, the melody was attributed to "Carl Mueller", and this attribution was repeated several times in other publications. The identity of "Carl Mueller" is unknown, but the tune is widely known as "Mueller" as a result.

"Cradle Song"

The standard melody in England is "Cradle Song". The tune, written by the American composer William J. Kirkpatrick, was first published in 1895 as part of the collection Around the World with Christmas (1895), a "Christmas Exercise" for schools featuring material representing various countries: "Away in a Manger" was included, under the title "Luther's Cradle Hymn", as a representative of "The German Fatherland".

Kirkpatrick's melody was later published in numerous hymn-books, and was the setting that, in Hill's words, "first carried the words beyond the confines of the United States", being included in collections such as Carey Bonner's Sunday School Hymnary (1905). It remains the most popular musical setting of "Away in a Manger" outside the United States.

Other musical settings

In his article "Not so far away in a Manger, forty-one settings of an American carol", published in the Music Library Association Notes (second series) III, no. 1 for December 1945, Richard Hill identified no fewer than 41 different musical settings.

The first music mentioned in connection with "Away in a Manger" was a pre-existing composition: Home! Sweet Home! (also known as "There's No Place Like Home"). This was suggested as a musical setting in Little Pilgrim Songs (1883) and The Myrtle (1884), and continued to be mentioned as an appropriate melody for decades to come. A musical arrangement was published in the early 1920s.

The first known musical setting specifically published with the words appeared in an Evangelical Lutheran Sunday School collection, Little Children's Book for Schools and Families (1885; preface dated Christmas 1884), where it simply bore the title "Away in a Manger". It was set to a tune called "St. Kilda," credited to J.E. Clark.

The melody by John Bunyan Herbert (first published in 1891), is identified by Hill as among the most popular. Like Murray's, Herbert's setting was often republished without credit to the original composer, with the melody sometimes even being misattributed to Luther himself.

Charles H. Gabriel, already mentioned as being the first to publish the third verse, has published at least three different musical arrangements of "Away in a Manger". His 1896 setting is notable for adding a refrain at the end of each verse.

Another popular arrangement, found at least as early as 1897, sets the words to Jonathan E. Spilman's 1838 melody "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton". Hill, writing in 1941, found Spilman's musical setting to be the second most published after Murray's.

An arrangement dating from 1911 sets the words to an "old Normandy Carol". This melody was subsequently published in Carols for Choirs, arranged by Reginald Jacques.

An arrangement by Christopher Erskine combining both settings (harmony), first heard in 1996 in Canberra at the annual pair of joint Carol Services in Manuka, performed by the choirs of St Paul's Church (Anglican) and St Christopher's Cathedral (Roman Catholic). In this version the Kirkpatrick setting is sung by one choir, and the Murray setting by the other choir, alternating through the first two verses. Both settings are sung together for the third verse.

Notable recordings