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Listen to it, sing it, download it or find the sheet music. Find out the history of your favourite carols or track down your favourite arrangement.

Little Donkey is a popular Christmas carol by Eric Boswell. Eric Boswell is from Wearside, but now lives in rural Northumbria. Little Donkey, has been recorded by many stars, including Gracie Fields, Nina & Frederick, and the Beverley Sisters. Many school children in the North sing this as part of their Nativity celebrations. The song [...]

The First Noel is a traditional English Christmas carol, most likely from the 16th or 17th century. It is of Cornish origin, and it was first published in Some Ancient Christmas Carols (1823) and Gilbert and Sandys Christmas Carols (1833), edited by William B. Sandys and arranged, edited and extra lyrics written by Davies Gilbert.
The [...]

“In the Bleak Midwinter” was written by Christina Rossetti before 1872, then published posthumously in Rossetti’s Poetic Works in 1904. It became a popular Christmas carol after appearing in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Holst.

In the Bleak Midwinter Lyrics

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water [...]

The “Coventry Carol” was performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from the Gospel of Matthew. This carol presents the Massacre of the Innocents in which Herod orders all male infants in Bethlehem killed. The lyrics of this haunting [...]

“O Tannenbaum” is a German Christmas carol which translates as “O Christmas Tree”. It was written in 1824 by Ernst Anschütz – a Leipzig organist and teacher. The melody is an old folk tune.
The Christmas tree only became common in the English-speaking world in the 19th century, popularized in England by Queen Victoria and introduced [...]

The literal translation of In Dulci Jubilo is “In Sweetness Rejoicing” but is commonly known as “Good Christian Men Rejoice”. The original text was writeen in Medieval German and Latin in the 1300’s. A well known English version by Robert Lucas de Pearsall (1837) retains the Latin phrases and substitutes English for German.

In Dulci Jubilo [...]

James Montgomery wrote the lyrics for Angels From the Realms of Glory. He came from a religious Irish family background and his parents, who were missionaries, died following their vocation.
Angels From the Realms of Glory was written in 1816. Its first printing was in the Sheffield Iris for whom Montgomery worked. The carol appeared in [...]

The origin of this carol is unclear as it is hundreds of years old. The first noted performance was in 1842 and the current melody was copyrighted in 1909 by Frederick Austin. The birds listed in the lyrics lead some people to speculate that the carol may be French, because the red-legged, tree perching, French [...]

We Wish You A Merry Christmas is a secular sixteenth-century English carol from the West Country of England. It is one of the few carols to mention the New Year celebration and also refers to a now rare dish – the figgy pudding. The recipe consisted of figs with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, rum, apple, [...]

The tune for “Ding Don Merrily On High” first appeared as a secular dance tune known as “le branle de l’Official” in Orchésographie, a dance book written by Jehan Tabourot (1519-1593). The text to Ding Dong Merrily on High was originally in Latin – “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” and was composed by George Ratcliffe Woodward [...]