The Gift of a Song

Mice brought us one of the greatest, most powerful hymns of all times. The year was 1818 when a band of roving actors came to Oberndorf, a small Alpine village near Salzburg, to present the Christmas story at the local church, a Catholic church named after St. Nicholas. The problem was that the organ wasn't working; mice had entered it and damaged it so that it couldn't be used and the repairman couldn't get there before Christmas.

The troup did its performance at a private home that was equipped with a small organ but this, plainly, was not going to be adequate for Christmas night, just two nights away. The assistant pastor, Joseph Mohr, took the long way home that night, contemplating the Christmas story, wondering what he could do to bring music to his flock on Christmas. As he looked over the snowclad village he recalled a poem he had written two years previously. If only there were music written for it, maybe a way could be found to present that as their carol for the church. The next day he spoke to the church organist, Franz Gruber, and asked if there was any way that music could be written for his poem; music that could be played by a simple guitar, without the organ or choir backing them up.

Guitars were not accepted by most churches. They were too common, reminiscient of the drunken bards or fools that played at traveling fairs. But Gruber stepped up and worked for hours -- for that was all the time he had -- and came up with a simple tune. They stepped up the next night and sang, for the first time, "Stille Nacht" or "Silent Night."

Weeks later the organ repairman came by and worked on the church's organ. He asked Gruber to play something to make sure he had repaired it adequately. Gruber played "Silent Night" and the repairman was so stunned by its beauty and simplicity that he asked for a copy. He took it to his own Alpine village the next week. At his home church, he played it where it was heard by two different families of traveling singers.

The Strasser sisters took the carol all over northern Europe, eventually performing it for King Frederick William IV of Prussia who was so taken by the song that he ordered it sung every Christmas in his cathedral. The year was 1834 and the song wasn't done traveling. The other family, the Rainers, took the carol to the United States and sung it there, in German, in 1839. It wasn't until 1863 that the song was translated into English and broke out of the large German communities in the US (in Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Kansas) and into the consciousness of the entire nation.

But it wasn't done. Fast forward to 1914. The world is at war. It is trench warfare with millions of men mired in frozen mud, slowly dying in narrow trenches ringed with snipers, machine guns, and barbed wire. It is Christmas and all along the line, in a dozen places, something remarkable happened.

British soldiers informed their officers that the Germans were stringing colored lights and decorating trees. They could see this through a series of mirrors held up over their position on sticks. You never put so much as a hand over the parapet or it would be shot by a watchful German sniper but more and more men crowded around to look up at the mirrors and watch the lights twinkle on all along the German lines. The officers told them not to shoot... just observe and report back.

Then the sound of a song came over a German radio. An internationally known opera star was singing, with tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice, "Stille Nacht." She had one son in the British lines and one in the German. Her song was a way to touch her sons; a prayer for a night of peace and safety for her boys. When the song was over the British men sang out "Silent Night" in their own language... but still from behind their sandbags and timber reinforced trench walls. The Germans applauded so the British sang "The First Noel." The Germans responded with "O Tannenbaum" and so it went for hours, trading carols and songs back and forth until the British sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" and the Germans sang along in their own language. Two nations, two languages, joined together in one hymn.

And then... a lone German soldier stood up, exposing himself. He walked forward, a white scarf tied to a stick held almost casually in one hand. He stood there quietly, smoking a cigarette as the British wondered if this were some kind of trick. Some Scots stood up slowly and walked toward him. When they met, the Scots offered some (illegally obtained and possessed) whisky from their canteens, exchanged cigarettes, and others began to leave the trenches and join the group in the middle. Soon, hundreds were showing each other photos from home, trying to tell jokes regardless of the language barrier, and trading gifts and tokens of the season with their nominal enemies.

The lads from the Bedfordshire Regiment played the Germans in a flare lit soccer match. From time to time the teams would shuffle and there would be mixed teams playing mixed teams. The game went on for hours until the ball was punted against a barbed wire wall and was punctured.

The dead were gathered and buried in services conducted by chaplins from both sides, in two languages, with both armies standing quietly in reverence for each other.

It couldn't last... though the unofficial truce did last until New Years in some places. Eventually a shot rang out -- accidentally? -- and the men raced to their truces and the war was war once more.

But for one shining moment, something changed the horror of WWI into something holy and kind and human. And it all began with a heartsick mother singing into a radio microphone a song that wouldn't have existed at all if some mice hadn't gotten into the organ at Oberndorf. A carol that saved the day in 1818 brought a moment of peace and joy in 1914. John McCutcheon wrote a wonderful song about that night called "Christmas in the Trenches."Allow me to write those words below. I assume you already know Silent Night. Now, when you sing it, you can remember the story behind the song and the power of that simple message, then and now.

Christmas in the Trenches

My Name is Frances Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, Germany to here,
I fought for King and Country I love dear.

Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung;
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my mess mate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound.
Says I, "Now listen up me boys," each soldier strained to here
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singing bloody well y'know" my partner says to me.
Soon one by one each German voiced joined in in harmony.
The cannons rested silent, and the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished, and a reverent pause was spent,
"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent.
Oh the next they sang was "Stille Nacht", 'tis "Silent Night" says I,
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky.
"There's someone coming towards us" the front line sentry cried.
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag like a Christmas star shone on that plain so bright
As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.

Then one by one on either side walked into no-man's land;
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand.
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well,
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home.
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own.
Young Sanders played the squeezebox and they had a violin,
This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night:
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forever more.

My name is Frances Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas comes since World War One, I've learned its lessons well.
For the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame,
And on each end of the rifle, we're the same.


Merry Christmas....