The curious language of Christmas carols

I could never understand as a little girl why we sang: ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.’ I knew what a manger was, and I knew that people set up cribs at home and in churches with the Child Jesus in the manger and the animals, shepherds and all the trimmings.

It turns out that I was right to be puzzled, for crib has the primary meaning of ‘a manger’, not ‘a baby’s cradle’. It’s a good old English word. Richard Rolle wrote in the 14th century of Jesus ‘born and laid in a crib between an ox and an ass’. The ox and the ass do not come from the Gospels, but from the prophetic words of Isaiah (1:3): ‘The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib,’ as it’s translated in the Authorised Version.

So the carol would be better as: ‘Away in a manger, a crib for a bed.’