CURIOUS CHRISTMAS CAROLS.

Shannon News, 24 December 1923, Page 2

CURIOUS CHRISTMAS CAROLS.

Music and song have always been associated with Christmas. In Roman Catholic countries, as early as the third century, it became the custom to usher in the Christian festivities with musical Masses. The practice of singing carols or canticles was supposed to recall the "In Excelsis Gloria" of the angels and the song of the shepherds on the first Christmas night. A very old carol, published in 1521, gives an amusing description of church revelries: A wooden child in clouts on the altar Aabout'thc which both boys and girls do dance and timely jest, And carols sing in praise of Christ.

The fpriests do roar aloud! And round about the parents stand To see the sport, and with their voice .Do help them, and with hand. _ At first, carols were generally relicious in character, and were written with Latin and English words in alternate lines, or with a Latin refrain. The well-known carol, When Christ was born of May free In Bethlehem, that fair citie, Angels sang there with mirth and glee In Excelsis Gloria, and another with a chorus, Christus natus hodie The babe, the son, The holy one, Of Mary. are good examples of this class. When the tendency to ribaldry became marked, some of the carols got to be very peculiar in subject and language. Joseph is treated with a great Avant of respect for, one carol runs: ■ ! ; '• : < Joseph was an old man, An old man was he, When he wedded Mary, The Maid of Galilee, Another relates the story of the shepherds watching their flocks by night: A shepherd upon a hill he satt, He had on him hys tabard and hatt, Hys tarbox, hys pipe, and hys flagatt, Hys name was called Joly-Joly Watt. Having been informed of the birth ,of Christ, the shepherd sets off for Bethlehem, and, on arriving, says: Jhesu! I off Thee my pipe, My skyrte, my tarbox, and my scrype, ; Home to my fellows now will l skype, ■And loke unto my shepe.

In'the thirteenth century the sacred character of these Christmas son<rs was almost entirely lost sigh* of. The puritan Parliament abolished Christmas and carols altogether, but feasting- and revelry returned with the Restoration. Carol singing, which had fallen into disuse, was revived by a collection of carols published by Mr D. Gilbert, in 1522, but carolling, which was formerly ushered in hv n>" chiming of church bells, and the sallying forth of choirs, which chanted teir way round the villages until their throats were hoarse and their noses red from cold and friendly Christmas potations, is now almost a thing of the past.