Occasional Folk Songs
Carols
Carols are very much part of Christmas and most people know the common ones and will join in even if they are not particularly religious.

Most carols we sing nowadays date from the 19th Century and later though there are a significant number that are much older. Here is one, the Seven Joys of Mary. This carol dates from the 15th Century and exists in a number of variants. The number of "joys" vary from five to nine, though there are actually more verses than nine known and so the "joys" themselves will vary in different versions.

the word "Carol" comes from the French "caroler" which in turn came from the Latin 'choraula', and from the Greek 'choraules', meaning a flute player for chorus dancing and finally derived from the Greek word 'choros' which was originally a circling dance.

Early carols were not specific to Christmas nor sung in Church but did have religious/semi mythical themes.

Carol singing was banned by the Puritans who felt Christmas should be a solemn day.

Although no longer sung in public it seems likely that carols went "underground" and were still sung in private gatherings. Some carols in fact survived in the oral tradition and were rediscovered by late 19th. Century folk song collectors.

The revival of carols and the writing of new carols began in the mid 18th. Century but the revival really "took off" in the mid 19th. Century. However the singing of carols in church only started in 1881 when the Bishop of Truro initiated the first service of nine lessons and carols.

A number of the Carols collected by folk song collectors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have found their way into the popular repertoire and others have remained less well known. Here is a carol that was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Castleton, Derbyshire in 1908. The carol originally dates back to the 16th Century and an earlier form called the "Corpus Chrisit Carol" was included in a manuscript compiled by a Richard Hill, an apprentice grocer sometime about 1504.

The pictures in the two videos were all taken by me. In the Seven Joys of Mary they feature a Holiday in Switzerland in January 2010 and Down in Yon Forest the pictures are of the North York Moors with the buildings being from the Rydale Folk Museum at Hutton-le-Hole.