minstrel: [Fwd: [MK8]Holiday Song Histories]

[hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu]

On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, Sandi Augsburger wrote:
> A friend on another list wrote to ask for this
> information. Can any of you help her? I would LOVE
> to know the history of these songs, too! Could you
> email me any information you have, and I will send
> it on to her?
> -------- Original Message --------
> 
> Subject: Holiday Song Histories
> 
> I am performing several songs on my holiday
> concert
> that I cannot seem to find information on their
> backgrounds.  My sources are few and I am in a
> small
> town so our library is pretty sad.  Any
> information
> anyone has would be great.
> 
> The Holly and the Ivy

>From the "Oxford Book of Carols" (by Prcy Dearmer, R. Vaughan Williams, &
Martin Shaw; Oxford University Press, I'm working from the 1928 first
edition simply because it's what I have -- I believe there's a later
edition that is much exanded in the notes and discussions):

"Words and melody taken from Mrs. Clayton at Chipping Campden, Glos.
(supplemented by words from Mrs. Wyatt, East Harptree, Soerset), by Cecil
Sharp, _English_Folk-Carols_."

That's for the most commonly known version of tune and words. Further
discussion notes that the words were first published "set to a French
carol tune" in 1861, and that this  source was _said_ to be taken from "an
old broadside, printed a century and a half since" (i.e., ca. 1710). These
earlier versions differ in the second line of the first verse, having "Now
are both well grown" as opposed to the usual modern "When they are both
full grown".

It's worth noting, though, that there seems to have been an entire genre
of "holly and ivy" songs. The Oxford Book of Carols includes two others.
Richard Leighton Greene's "The Early English Carols" (Clarendon Press,
1977) has an entire section entitled "Carols of Holly and Ivy" containing
six different sets of lyrics from the 15th and 16th centuries. (None
appears to be a lineal ancestor of the usual modern Holly & Ivy carol.)

> I Saw Three Ships

Also from the Oxford Book of Carols:

"The version above [i.e., the usual song known by this name] (in Sandys,
1833) differs only in verse 3 from the Derbyshire version with our first
tune in Bramley & Stainer, 'Christmas Carols New and Old, 1871."

And then more discussion of variant texts and versions recorded with other
tunes.

> Deck the Hall

Good question. This isn't in my edition of the Oxford book (which tends to
omit purely secular songs). The "standard" _Welsh_ lyrics to this tune
("Oer yw'r gwr sy'n methu caru etc.") were composed by John "Ceiriog"
Hughes and first published in 1873 in Brinley Richards' "Songs of Wales"
(Boosey & Co., Ltd., London). In this edition, they were accompanied by
English lyrics coposed by John Oxenford that are of the same general
sentiment as Hughes' Welsh lyrics (and the more commonly known modern
English lyrics) but do not correspond precisely to either.

Since the tune is uniformly known as "an old Welsh tune" I would tend to
assume that the various English versions followed upon the popularizing of
the tune by Hughes and thus date to the late 19th century or later, but I
can't find any collection in my own library that assigns an actual author
to the "Deck the halls" words.

> Ding Dong Merrily on High

The tune appears in Arbeau's "Orchesography", but the usually-sung words
were composed by George R. Woodward (this information courtesy of "50
Christmas Carols for All Harps" by Sylvia Woods), who I believe dates to
the late 19th century (but an exhaustive British biographical dictionary
should turn up specifics).

Tangwystyl

*********************************************************
Heather Rose Jones         hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu
**********************************************************


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