Ar hyd y nos

Yesterday at church, the program listed the closing hymn as For the Fruit of All Creation. I didn’t recognize the title but I sure recognized the tune: An ancient Welsh air known as Ar hyd y nos (no, I don’t speak Gaelic), also known as All Through the Night. I looked in the back of the hymnal and saw that the tune index listed Ar hyd y nos at three different locations in that one hymnal: Go My Children With God’s Blessing, God Who Made the Earth and Heaven, and For the Fruit of All Creation.

Mozart it ain’t. Some totally unknown person or persons, perhaps a poor peasant, made up this simple tune in his, or probably her, home, perhaps to be a sung to her baby, many centuries ago. Yet it still appears in hymnals and many thousands, perhaps millions of people, have sung it and continue to sing it. Mozart should be so lucky.