Lo! The Eastern Sages Rise

Lo! The Eastern Sages Rise

Carol sung at Padstow in Cornwall and at Coal Aston in Derbyshire.

The words of Lo! the Eastern Sages Rise were written by Jehoiada Brewer, a Congregational (Independent) minister at Queen Street Congregational Church, Sheffield and Carrs Lane Congregational Chapel, Birmingham; and set to a tune by Samuel Stanley of Birmingham.

The words - including some verses not retained in oral tradition - can be found on two broadsides printed in Birmingham in the first half of the nineteenth century, and available from the Bodleian Library's Broadside collection. In both cases the song is entitled The star of Bethlehem, and the first line is given as "Lo! the Eastern image rise".

The carol travelled to America - for instance to New Almaden in California, where many Cornish miners worked in the quicksilver mines:

Besides singing in the mines, the Cornish miners would sing door to door beginning a week before Christmas. They sang songs popular in Cornwall, England, where they immigrated from, such as "Lo the Eastern Sages Rise," "Hark What Music Fills Creation," as well as the better known "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Afterwards, they would visit with the residents and share saffron cake and tea.

Almaden Times, December 22, 2005

Words and music from Ralph Dunstan, The Cornish Song Book, 1929 (under the title Star Of Bethlehem). Dunstan provides the note "This Carol was formerly very popular in the Parishes of St. Agnes, Mithian, and Perranzabuloe — and is still sung there. Variants of the tune exist, with interpolations. The version given here is from the most reliable MS. collections of 1840-1850."