Advent, Advent, a little light is burning

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Advent, Advent, a little light is burning is a well-known nursery rhyme for the Advent season .

The time when the verse was written is unknown. His text was passed down orally. It has been verifiable in printed form since at least the second half of the 1960s. The poem is also sung on various melodies as an Advent song.

content

Advent wreath, two out of four candles are lit.

The poem is about the Advent season . The content alludes to the tradition of lighting one more candle on the Advent wreath on each of the four Advent Sundays in order to announce the approach of Christmas through the increasing brightness.

reception

The poem is recited or sung in kindergartens and elementary schools. According to folklorist Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann , it is the verses "that every kindergarten child learns first".

There are several parodies of the poem . Because of the high recognition value, variants of the verse are widespread in the press, for example. Political variants with either xenophobic or anti-Nazi content can also be found.

text

Advent, Advent,
a little light is burning.
First one, then two,
then three, then four,
then the Christ Child is at the door.

Older children add:

And when the fifth light is on,
then you've slept through Christmas!

Related works

The German composer Hans Poser has published a piece of the same name, which has a different text than the oral tradition.

Footnotes

  1. Advent Advent a light is burning at volksliederarchiv.de
  2. Paul Faulbaum: The ringing chain. Fourteen shocking lovely old nursery rhymes and puzzles. Ehrenwirth, Munich 1966, p. 150.
    Hans Schorer (Hrsg.): Poems for primary school. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / München 1969, p. 35.
    Both cited from: Helmut Fischer: Children's rhymes in the Ruhr area: rhymes, songs, play songs, riddles, joke questions and jokes (= work and living - folkloric studies in the Rhineland. Volume 18 ). Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7927-1114-1 , p. 221.
  3. Rejoice, rejoice. The most beautiful Christmas carols. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-596-17450-3 , p. 25.
  4. Hildegard Meyberg (ed.): Let's sing in the Christmas season. Auer, Donauwörth 1985, ISBN 3-403-01602-1 , p. 63.
  5. Advent, Advent at lieder-archiv.de
  6. a b c Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann: The book of Christmas carols. Melody output . 12th edition, Schott Music, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-254-08213-8 , p. 332 f.
  7. Holger Monschau: Mass and Volume. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8448-1185-8 , p. 1 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  8. Advent, Advent the school is on fire
  9. Kurt Franz: "If a refrigerator comes flying ..." Alienation of children's poetry in the language of the present. In: Kurt Franz, Hans Gärtner (Hrsg.): Children's lyric between tradition and modernity (= series of publications of the German Academy for Children's and Young People's Literature Volkach eV Volume 17). Schneider, Hohengehren 1996, ISBN 3-87116-488-7 , pp. 111–147, here p. 130 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  10. The souls of the people bent . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1992 ( online - Nov. 30, 1992 ).
  11. Leonie Ossowski: Fully on the roll: a play by the GRIPS theater on xenophobia. Weismann, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-88897-012-1 , p. 46 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  12. Klaus Farin, Eberhard Seidel-Pielen: Nothing works without violence! Youth and Violence in Germany. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-7663-2430-6 , p. 226 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  13. Scene 1
  14. Hans Poser: Advent (= song sheet series Mosaik. No. 16). Fidula, Boppard 1956, DNB 997630752 .
  15. ^ Text by Hans Poser