Now, whether carol singing has degenerated with carol poetry, and consequently the sale of Christmas carols diminished is a question we need not enter upon; but when we turn to the fine old carols of our forefathers, we cannot help regretting that many of these are buried in the records of the long past.
Here are a couple of verses of one, said to be the first carol or drinking-song composed in England. The original is in Anglo-Norman French:—
“Lordlings, from a distant home,
To seek old Christmas are we come,
Who loves our minstrelsy—
And here unless report mis-say,
The greybeard dwells; and on this day
Keeps yearly wassail, ever gay
With festive mirth and glee.
****
Lordlings, it is our host’s command,
And Christmas joins him hand in hand,
To drain the brimming bowl;
And I’ll be foremost to obey,
Then pledge we, sirs, and drink away,
For Christmas revels here to day,
And sways without control.
Now wassail to you all! and merry may you be,
And foul that wight befall, who drinks not health to me.”
One can well imagine the hearty feeling which would greet a party of minstrels carolling out such a song as the above in Christmas days of yore; and then contrast the picture with a troupe from St. Giles’s or Whitechapel bawling out “God Rest you Merry Gentlemen!” The very thought of the contrast sends a shudder through the whole human system; and no wonder the first were received with welcome feasting, and the latter driven “with more kicks than half-pence” from the doors.
In an old book of “Christmasse Carolles newely emprinted at London, in the fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde. The yere of our Lorde, m.d.xxi. Quarto.” Is a carol on “Bryngyng in the Bore’s Head”:—
“The bore’s head in hand bring I,
With garlandes gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merely,
Qui estis in convivio.
The bore’s head, I understande
Is the chiefe servyce in this lande,
Loke wherever it be fande,
Servite cum Contico.
Be gladde, lordes, both more and lasse,
For this hath ordayned our stewarde,
To chere you all this Christmasse
The bore’s head with mustarde.”
With certain alterations, this carol is still, or at least was very recently, retained at Queen’s College, Oxford, and sung to a cathedral chant of the psalms.
It would occupy too much space to search into the origin of Christmas carols. They are doubtless coeval with the original celebrations of Christmas, first as a strictly Romish sacred ceremony, and afterwards as one of joyous festivity.
