"Es ist ein Ros entsprungen Aus einer Wurzel zart, |44| Als uns die Alten sungen, Von Jesse kam die Art, Und hat ein Bluemlein bracht, Mitten im kalten Winter, Wohl zu der halben Nacht. Das Roeslein, das ich meine, Davon Jesajas sagt, Hat uns gebracht alleine Marie, die reine Magd. Aus Gottes ew'gem Rat Hat sie ein Kind geboren Wohl zu der halben Nacht."[18]{20} In a fourteenth-century Life of the mystic Heinrich Suso it is told how one day angels came to him to comfort him in his sufferings, how they took him by the hand and led him to dance, while one began a glad song of the child Jesus, "In dulci jubilo." To the fourteenth century, then, dates back that most delightful of German carols, with its interwoven lines of Latin. I may quote the fine Scots translation in the "Godlie and Spirituall Sangis" of 1567:-- "_In dulci Jubilo_, Now lat us sing with myrth and jo Our hartis consolatioun lyis _in praesepio_, And schynis as the Sone, _Matris in gremio_, _Alpha es et O, Alpha es et O._ _O Jesu parvule!_ I thrist sore efter the, |45| Confort my hart and mynde, _O puer optime_, God of all grace sa kynde, _et princeps gloriae_ _Trahe me post te, Trahe me post te_. _Ubi sunt gaudia_, in ony place bot thair, Quhair that the Angellis sing _Nova cantica_, Bot and the bellis ring _in regis curia_, God gif I war thair, God gif I war thair."{21} The music of "In dulci jubilo"[19] has, with all its religious feeling, something of the nature of a dance, and unites in a strange fashion solemnity, playfulness, and ecstatic delight. No other air, perhaps, shows so perfectly the reverent gaiety of the carol spirit. The fifteenth century produced a realistic type of German carol. Here is the beginning of one such:-- "Da Jesu Krist geboren wart, do was es kalt; in ain klaines kripplein er geleget wart. Da stunt ain esel und ain rint, die atmizten ueber das hailig kint gar unverborgen. Der ain raines herze hat, der darf nit sorgen."[20]{22} It goes on to tell in naive language the story of the wanderings of the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt. This carol type lasted, and continued to develop, in Austria and the Catholic parts of Germany through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and even in the nineteenth. In Carinthia in the early nineteenth century, almost every parish had its local poet, who added new songs to the old treasury.{23} Particularly popular were the _Hirtenlieder_ or shepherd songs, in which the peasant worshippers joined themselves to the shepherds of Bethlehem, and sought to share their devout |46| emotions. Often these carols are of the most rustic character and in the broadest dialect. They breathe forth a great kindliness and homeliness, and one could fill pages with quotations. Two more short extracts must, however, suffice to show their quality.