For almost 60 years this lovely little Christmas lullaby carol was attributed to Martin Luther. But thorough research on the part of hymnologists has failed to turn up anything similar to it in any of his works. Actually, it can be found in no German hymnal prior to a Lutheran collection published in 1934 in Missouri. In 1945 Richard Hill, in an article “Not So Far Away in a Manger: Forty-one Settings of an American Carol,” in Music Library Association Notes, December issue, capably proved that it could not have been authored by Luther. First publication was in Little Children’s Books for Schools and Families, 1885. It was the second publication that probably started the myth. J. R. Murray’s Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses sets it to his own tune with the caption “Luther’s Cradle Hymn. Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” This was taken as authentic by many later hymnals.

The version with an added third stanza first appeared in 1 892 in Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs, published by Charles H. Gabriel (see SDAH 435), a famous and successful gospel song composer. Methodist hymnologist Robert McCutchan quotes a story from Bishop William Anderson in which he says it was Written at his invitation by John Thomas McFarland (1851-1913), then secretary of the Methodist Board of Sunday Schools in New York. Anderson Wanted to use the hymn for a Children’s Day program and wished three ^stanzas instead of two. McFarland’s office was close by, and he went there for privacy to write. Within an hour he brought the finished stanza. The dates g^iven for this occurrence vary from 1904 to 1908, several years after first publication in 1892, mentioned above. So the mystery about authorship of this carol continues, but that does not diminish our enjoyment of it.

CRADLE SONG was composed for this text by William J. Kirkpatrick (1838-1921; see Biographies), that energetic and prolific camp meeting song leader and composer of many favorite gospel songs. While he was director of music at Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, in 1895, he printed the carol in a pamphlet of seven songs entitled Around the World With Christmas. It is perhaps the charming quality of this tune that has helped it to find acceptance in several hymnals in England.

-from Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White