"The Friendly Beasts" is set to the melody of which Latin song?

“The Friendly Beasts” is set to the melody of the Latin song “Orientis Partibus.”

The Christmas song tells the Nativity story through the imagined voices of animals: a donkey carries Mary, a cow offers its manger, a sheep supplies wool, a dove sings the child to sleep, and a camel carries a gift. Its melody is associated with the medieval Latin song “Orientis Partibus,” also known as “The Song of the Ass.”

The tradition appears to have originated in 12th-century France. The current English words are much newer: Robert Davis wrote them in the 1920s, and they appeared in a 1920 nativity play arranged by Clarence Dickinson and others.

A common mix-up is to treat the English lyrics and medieval melody as the same-age creation. They are not. The tune has medieval roots, while the familiar English text belongs to the modern revival of older Christmas material.