This is a folk styled song about the three wise men, with a profound meditation of what gifting can be. I don’t know if this story with the twist in the final stanza is original to Patricia Smith, or is a tradition that I have yet to come across. It’s great nonetheless.
It can be purchased in the collection, And the Angels Sang, or as separate pieces of sheet music.
I’m in a little secular group of singers here and we might give this one a go for Christmas. I usually choke up by the fourth and fifth verse – curse you Patricia for making me feel things – so I will have to practice. I found I needed to be careful to get a breath in before long phrases.
I made two backings, which usually means I had second thoughts about the first one.
1 Three travellers came riding over mountains and plains,
To a town that was ravaged by famine and plague.
They went to pass by but a cry held them there,
A cry from the depths of a heart, close to despair.
2 “We’ll rest here tonight,” the first said to his friends.
In the morning they took up their journey again.
They came to a place, they had seen from afar,
A stable made holy and bright by the light of a star.
3 The each asked the others, “What gift did you bring?
Our gifts for the child must be fit for a king.”
The first said dejected, “I gave all my gold
To a mother to feed her young baby, starving and cold.”
4 The second one told them, “I brought frankincence,
But I gave it to a woman whose child was near death.”
“Ah no!” cried the third, “for the myrrh that I had
I gave to a mother to bury here only son.
5 The stable door opened and the threec rept inside.
They found a young maiden with a glorious child,
And laid out before them, gifts costly and rare,
For the child and his mother, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
© 2023 P A Smith published by Willow Publishing.