I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied ’round their throats
To keep their little heads from falling in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red
As strawberries in the summertime.
– Fleet Foxes, White Winter Hymnal
Since it was written in 2008, this 6-line verse by Fleet Foxes has become a popular Christmas hymn, covered by other artists and school choirs across the country. It has also aroused intrigue by the population at large, as to why this should become a Christmas hymn. There is nothing here directly referenced to Christmas, and if for anything, some have suggested it sounded more like an execution plot.
But the peculiar reference to the scarves serves as a cue to recall the fairy tale of The Juniper Tree. Once upon a time, a woman stood under a juniper tree to peel an apple. When she cut her finger, blood fell into the snow, and she thus wished for a child as red as blood and as white as snow. When she gave birth to such a boy, she was so happy that she died, thus her husband married another woman and had a daughter with her. The evil step mother hated the beautiful boy. One day, she lured the boy toward an apple inside a chest and slammed its large heavy lid down to chop off his head. Then she set the head on the neck again and tied a white scarf around it. Once the sister found out that her brother was dead, the mother chopped him into pieces, cooked them into a stew, and served it to his father. Meanwhile, the sister gathered all the bones beneath the table to wrap them inside her silk scarf, crying tears of blood. As she laid them down beneath the juniper tree, a mist rose from the tree. In the center of this mist it burned like a fire, and a beautiful bird flew out of the fire, up high into the air.
The bird flew to a goldsmith and in return for his beautiful song, received a golden chain to carry in his right claw. Then he flew to a shoemaker and received a pair of red shoes to carry in his left claw. Then he flew far away to a mill and received a stone to carry around his neck as if it were a collar. With his collectible, he returned to crush the mother to death with the stone, and gifted the golden chain to his father, and the pair of red shoes to his sister. The three objects mentioned here carry the symbols of Christianity: -the millstone recalls Matthew 18:6, “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” -the golden chain recalls Romans 8:29-30, which is regarded as the Golden Chain of Salvation, as each link connects to form an unbreakable chain, -and the pair of red shoes, also known as Papal shoes, symbolizes the blood of Christ. The trio forms the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The final mention of strawberries in the summertime is another peculiar one. Here I recall the song Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles, as Strawberry Field was the name of a Salvation Army children’s home close to John Lennon’s childhood home in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool:
“Let me take you down
‘Cause I’m going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever.”
We can also take the song’s meaning from the songwriter’s perspective. According to Robin Pecknold, the melody was inspired by Disney’s Whistle While You Work from Snow White and was intended to be a humming tune while doing dishes. He meant to highlight the song’s “lush melody” and for its vagueness to be intentional. “So it started with that very beginning thing, the first kind of like, melody. And then once the verse was done, it just seemed like it lent itself to the repetition, you know?”
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