Description
The words to On Christmas night were first published in the 17th century by the Irish bishop Luke Wadding. Over the intervening centuries the carol’s text and tune were much revised but a version similar to that which modern ears are familiar was in included in a number of early Victorian songbooks.
The carol’s mainstream popularity stems from its use by Vaughan Williams in his Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912) and the Eight Traditional English Carols (1919). He had come across the carol during his travels across the country to listen to and notate folk songs and carols. Vaughan Williams heard it sung in 1904 by a Mrs Verrall of Monk’s Gate, near Horsham, East Sussex – which might be why the carol is also known as the Sussex Carol.
Over the years several arrangements of the carol have been made, including this version by George Butterworth (1885-1916). Butterworth – himself a keen folk song collector – heard the carol in 1907 being sung by a Mr George Knight, also in Sussex. This arrangement is based on Butterworth’s unaccompanied choral version published in 1912.
