Sparven om julmorgonen information

Sparven om julmorgonen (Swedish, Sparrow on Christmas Morning) is a poem by Zachris Topelius from 1859. It has been translated to Finnish by Konrad Alexis Hougberg. You can see the sorrow of Topelius in the poem; his son, Rafael, died at the age of one the spring before he wrote the poem.^[1]

The poem has been composed to a song several times. The most known of them must be the Christmas carol by Otto Kotilainen. It was published for the first time in the "Joulupukki" magazine in 1913.^[2]

The song has been recorded by numerous popular Finnish artists, such as Mauno Kuusisto, Sulo Saarits, Tapani Kansa, Hector, Marco Hietala, Vesa-Matti Loiri, Viikate & Timo Rautiainen, Pepe Willberg, Tarja Turunen, Matti ja Teppo, Petri Laaksonen, Richard Järnefelt, Rajaton, Suvi Teräsniska, Diandra, Club for Five and Jarkko Ahola.^[3]