There was a Pig…

In 2009 ‘The Seagull’, our local community theatre had just been saved from closure. My friend Ian said, ‘Let’s do an evening of carols and Christmas readings.’ He arranged ‘Seekers and Dreamers’. Thirty or forty people turned up.

Seekers and Dreamers has happened each year since. Bridget, Ian’s wife arranges mulled wine and mince pies. For some regulars it’s the start of their Christmas. Thus, last Sunday, a full theatre remembered the Christmas story, and reflected on the Christmas message.

On Saturday Ian arranged a practice for the musicians. ‘There’s a new tune,’ he said, ‘There was a pig went out to dig’. He recalled hearing it on ‘Listen with Mother’ on the radio many years ago.

We played it through a few times. I remembered… I’d heard it in my childhood too:

There was a pig went out to dig; Chrisimas Day, Chrisimas Day.

There was pig went out to dig; Chrisimas Day in the morning.

Other verses include There was a cow went out to plough… There was a sparrow went out to harrow…

Mr Google tells me… It’s a traditional English folk carol with roots in rural farming life… Animals symbolically perform farming tasks – digging, ploughing, sowing… It’s linked to mummers’ plays – folk dramas performed around Christmas… It’s about the agricultural cycle,

Musing…

…Seasonal cycles, seasons of life …The winter season… Plants dying back… Times of life’s darkness and cold… Winter Solstice – the turning point… Jesus coming as light and life to a dark, dead world… Solomon’s wise words about the rhythmic seasons of life…

There is a… season for every activity under the heavens:

 a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance…

…I wonder whether Solomon considered a pig going out to dig.