We have a king who rides a donkey

We have a king who rides a donkey. Frederik Herman Kaan* (1929-2009). Written in 1968 for a Family Service at the Pilgrim Church, Plymouth, where the author was minister, and published in Pilgrim Praise (1968). It is a children’s hymn, written (in the author’s word) ‘unashamedly’ to the sea-shanty tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor’ (repeated 3 times)/ ‘Early in the morning?’ The ‘drunken sailor’ motif, and the setting in the early morning, led the author to make a whimsical connection with Acts 1: ‘bearing in mind that when the disciples preached the Easter Gospel on the first day of Pentecost, the crowds in Jerusalem thought they were drunk!’ (The Hymn Texts of Fred Kaan,...

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