What song did the "Mother of Folk" say her grandmother would often sing on Twelfth Night?
Brightest and Best "Brightest and Best" (occasionally rendered by its first line, "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning") is a Christian hymn written in 1811 by the Anglican bishop Reginald Heber to be sung at the feast of Epiphany. It appeared in Heber's widow's compilation of hymns entitled "Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Church Year" in 1827. It can be sung to a number of tunes, including "Morning Star" by James P. Harding, "Epiphany" by Joseph Thrupp, and "Star in the East" by William Walker. It appears in "The Lutheran Hymnal", and appeared in the 1966 Methodist hymnal. It has been recorded by a number of artists, including Glen Campbell, Joanne Hogg and Kathy Mattea (on her album "Good News"). The Kentucky traditional singer Jean Ritchie often sang this and told of her childhood memory of her grandmother sitting by the fire and singing it quietly to herself on Twelfth Night; the Library of Congress collected it from her in 1951.
The Friendly Beasts "The Friendly Beasts" is a traditional Christmas song about the gifts that a donkey, cow, sheep, camel, and dove give to Jesus at the Nativity. The song seems to have originated in 12th-century France, set to the melody of the Latin song "Orientis Partibus". The current English words were written by Robert Davis (1881-1950) in the 1920s.