The Story of Silent Night

Walk into any public square or shopping mall at this time of year and an encounter with a traditional Christmas carol is well-nigh unavoidable. We may not sing them ourselves with anything like the frequency or fervour we once did at church but the tunes themselves defy relegation to our past.

One of the most ubiquitous is the carol “Silent Night” (originally “Stille Nacht”) by Joseph Mohr (1792–1848) and Franz Gruber (1787–1863). It’s estimated that its lyrics alone have been translated into at least 140 languages. On more than one occasion in both World Wars, fighting at Christmas was brought to a temporary close by troops singing their native versions of “Silent Night” to one another across the front line.