Gaabriel Becket


 

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Modern American Christmas Carols Have Roots in Pagan Welsh dances

user image 2008-12-24
By: gaabi
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Wales Online has an article today from Robin Turner of the Western Mail on a fascinating study on the origins of Christmas carols. From the article:"Dr Ian Bradley, a theologian at the University of St Andrews in Scotland claims the popular tune comes from Nos Galan (New Years Eve) which was played when groups of merrymakers danced around a harpist."The tune has been linked with Nantgarw it is also known as the Nantgarw Flower Dance and with North Wales."Dr Bradley said: 'Originally carols were dances and not songs"'The accompanying tune would have been used as a setting for any verses of appropriate metre.'"It is thought Deck the Halls was exported to North America by Welsh miners who emigrated to the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina the lyrics of the modern version are of American origin."Dr Bradley, who undertook the research for his Book of Carols, said: 'The tune was discovered in a musical manuscript by Welsh harpist John Parry Ddall who died in 1782. The tune however is almost certainly dated from the 16th century.'"The composition was published in the 1784 and 1794 editions of the harpist Edward Jones Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards."Poet John Ceiriog Hughes wrote the first published lyrics for the piece in Welsh, calling it Nos Galan."Dr Bradley said: 'Like decorating trees, some carols have more to do with paganism than Christianity."'Deck The Halls was originally a Welsh dance carol sung on New Years Eve and belongs to a very distinctive Welsh tradition where people would dance in a ring around a harpist."'It talks about:See the blazing yule before us, strike the harp and join the chorus.'In some sense, carols have their origin in pagan religions because they come out of dance it is the Greek chorus, the circling dance, accompanied by singing and associated with fertility rites.'So its very much pagan, and that of course is precisely the reason why the Church was so uneasy about singing carols for so long.'" More here .