Merry Christmas (With Some Holly And Ivy)

Just to wish you a Merry (but also a safe and peaceful) Christmas....

....and, as so many of you seemed to enjoy the YouTube video I gave you a link to recently, here's another, also showing a carol being sung to the "wrong" tune. This time it's the old favourite "The Holly And The Ivy", here being sung in a Yorkshire pub. The holly and ivy are of course pagan symbols of the old midwinter celebrations and there are those who claim that the song goes back to pre-Christian times. If so then it's a very old song indeed.

But it has always struck me that there's something very odd about these verses. The first part of each verse - and the chorus - sounds as natural and unforced as any folk song. But then comes the convoluted and clumsy versification at the end of each stanza. It sounds to me as if someone at some time has tried hard to make an acceptable church song out of a much older rhyme. 

If I'm right about its origins then it's perhaps fitting that it should be heard in a pub. So here it is echoing through the centuries in all its roaring glory.....

I "borrowed" the video from Dave Burbidge's YouTube channel which is full of excellent singing, some of it from rather unexpected sources.

Merry Christmas.

Take care.