One of the more fun things about Advent Carols are the ones you get that were written by the people, for the people.  And the people sometimes had some pretty unorthodox ideas, largely, one suspects, because services were in Latin, Bibles were for the clergy, and singing was not permitted in church.  This left quite a lot of room for people to make things up with the best of intentions.  And people were pretty interested in St Joseph, because in some ways, he’s the most relatable character in the Christmas story.  I mean, Jesus is divine, Mary is a walking miracle, and then you have Joseph, just an ordinary bloke (indeed, a regular Joe), whose betrothed has just turned up pregnant and is claiming that the baby is the son of God.

You can see why he wouldn’t be too thrilled about this.  The people writing carols could see it too, and there are a whole swathe of carols about Joseph being quite grumpy about the whole business.  (Incidentally, I’m told that Joseph didn’t get many churches in his honour, especially in Italy, largely because of a feeling that he was a cuckold.  Apparently, being cuckolded by God isn’t much better than the regular kind of cuckoldry, at least if you are Italian.)  Here’s one of them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oscp04gjgIY&w=560&h=315] Continue reading →