Have heard a lot of carols today - does anyone else think this about some of the words?

[Clary]

Have been cooking/prepping food/cleaning all day so had Classic FM/Radio 4 on.

Singing along to Hark the Herald (which I love btw) I was struck anew by something forgotten from my childhood - "veiled in flesh the Godhead see" - I always worried about that, Jesus in some kind of bacon headdress (bacon especially inappropriate actually! [grin}).

Also "Lo he abhors not the virgin's womb" in O COme all ye, took me many years to get my head round that as a youngster.

Not calling for censorship of carols btw! but some could maybe do with an update... or not? Do we in fact love the traditional olde words?

My DSis thought that "to certain" was a special angelic verb when they went "to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay".

Oh yes, that's a good one, and for years I wondered about "Thus spake the seraph"

Not sure now what a seraph is actually...

Seraph is a kind of angel. There's seraphim and cherubim. Seraphim are the major ones and cherubim are the littlies.

I love the old words - maybe a bit old fashioned, but very poetic and it would be very very hard to make more modern words so poetic.

I like the link with the past, if only the Victorian past, too.

Quite a few carols have been updated in various versions (church of Scotland, church hymnary 4 in my own experience) and I hate it. I'm always standing there singing the old words which I know by heart, before I realise everyone else is singing something else.
Can't give any specific examples, as I've blocked them all from my memory :)

oh I hate "updated" Christmas Carol words.

Write a new one with modern wording - fine no problem

Mess around with the old words - GET YOUR BLOODY HANDS OFF.

What's even worse is the hymn book I'm lumbered with at our church has changed words and changed harmonies.!!!

I love the old words. Singing hymns and carols is often the first time you experience metaphor. I think it is brilliant, I wouldn't change any of it.

Love the old words and the old tunes. Can't stand ruddy choirs who think it's jolly clever to do a new treatment. I want the Proper Version, thank you very much!

Agree it's important that children do hear words that they don't understand. It'd be a very boring world if it was all 'See Peter, See Jane, See the ball'.

"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see" means exactly what it says. Its a grown-up carol talking about the incarnation, not just telling the story.

By all means, compose some new carols but don't stop singing the old ones with the old, proper, words.

Calm down ladies, I agree with you!

I just remember being a bit spooked by the old veiled in flesh bit, but as edam says, it is important that children (and adults too!) hear words they don't understand.

Thanks for the seraph update - I guess I had figured that's what it meant