The Three Drovers
The Three Drovers ( English The three drovers ) is a Christmas carol from Australia . It describes a Christmas mood in the scorching heat of a summer night in the Australian outback . Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere , Christmas falls there in the middle of summer . Instead of the three wise men , led by the star of Bethlehem , looking for the baby Jesus , three Australian drovers appear in The Three Drovers (see also: Cowboy ). The large herds of cattle in the outback had to be guarded at night on horseback from dingoes , robbers , bushfires and stampedes , so that the song could actually come from the everyday life of an Australian drover in the first half of the 20th century .
The song was composed by William Garnet James (1892-1977) and published in 1948 in a song collection Australian Christmas Carols ( English Australian Christmas carols ). The text comes from John Wheeler (1901-1984), a screenwriter working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Along with The Carol of the Birds by the same team of authors, it is one of the most famous Australian Christmas carols, and Australian Christmas Carols became the most famous work by William G. James.
literature
- Martin Schmeisser, Christine Riedl (Eds.): Christmas songs from all over the world , song book , Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag (Reclam UB series), 2015. ISBN 978-3-15-011050-8 , p. 59.
Web links
- The Three Drovers on The Hymnary.org
- The Three Drovers on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ↑ Australian Christmas carols: SATB choir with piano , accessed December 4, 2019.
- ↑ John Wheeler , The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology, accessed December 5, 2019 (subscription access).
- ^ William Garnet James and his many hats . Australian Music Center, December 19, 2008, accessed December 5, 2019.