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We Wish You a Merry Christmas

[ Roud 230 , 9681 ; Ballad Index FSWB376C ; GlosTrad Roud 230 ; trad.]

Roud 230

The Wisbech Children’s Choir sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas in 1957 in a live Christmas Day broadcast on BBC Radio. This was published in 2000 on the Alan Lomax Collection CD Sing Christmas and the Turn of the Year.

George Dunn sang a fragment of Open the Door to Roy Palmer on 14 July 1971. This recording was included in 2002 on his Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker. Rod Stradling noted:

Although the last two lines here seem to have been fairly well known, I have not come across the first three elsewhere.

George Dunn, despite the apparent contradiction, normally followed these words with some of the verses from I Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Wiggy Smith sang The Cock Flit Up in the Yew Tree to Gwilym Davies and Paul Burgess at his caravan at Elmstone Hardwicke on 11 August 1994. This recording was included in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Band of Gold. Rod Stradling noted:

Perhaps surprisingly, this fragment of an old Christmas song has been noted eight times: Sharp found it in Shropshire being sung by both Henry Bould and a Mrs Halfpenny in 1911, and more recently Katharine Thomson heard it from Elsie Marshall of Birmingham, and Roy Palmer collected it from Jessie Howman in Gloucester and George Dunn in Quarry Bank, Staffordshire. Wiggy’s is the only known sound recording.

Nowell Sing We Clear sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas in 1995 on their Golden Hind album Hail Smiling Morn!. Tony Barrand noted:

Part of the pleasure obtained from twenty-one years of delving into the vast Christmas repertoire of songs and carols is the discovery of different versions of songs that people know well. They’re not always received with joy by our audiences who don’t necessarily appreciate having to adjust to another song when they’ve just got to know and love the old one. We Wish You a Merry Christmas is a medley of carols collected in the English Midlands (See Songs of the Midlands edited by Roy Palmer, EP Publishing Limited, 1972).

John Kirkpatrick et al sang Open the Door on their 1998 traditional celebration of an English Midwinter on the Fellside album Wassail!. He noted:

A chant performed by children in Quarry Bank in the West Midlands, as remembered by George Dunn, born in 1887, and recorded as an old man in 1971. Another begging song.

John Kirkpatrick also sang Chuckling Hens in 2006 on his Fledg’ling album Carolling & Crumpets where he noted:

This is an assembly of traditional fragments and rhymes that have been found all over the Western Midlands—in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, and Gloucestershire—and The Black Country, where the verses sung by George Dunn (including the rude bit!) started off the search for more. With a few original lines chucked in to keep the mood going, I cobbled this together a couple of years ago for the Bishop’s Castle Wassailers. A more defiant and irresistible call for Christmas charity is hard to imagine.

The Greentrax Choir, comprising Drinkers Drouth, Sangsters and The McCalmans, sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas in 2000 on Greentrax’ alternative Christmas album, Bah! Humbug.

Vikki Swan and Jonny Dyer sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas on their 2014 album A Sound of Christmas Past. They noted:

A 16^th century West Country carol similar, in delivery, to a wassail.

The Wilderness Yet sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas on their 2021 CD Turn the Year Round. They noted:

A traditional English carol from the West Country, holding true to the great Yuletide tradition of scrounging what you can from your neighbours! Our harmonies for this one are loosely based on the famous arrangement by Arthur Warrell.

Roud 9681

The South Yorkshire village carols tradition has quite a different version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Carollers at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth sang it on 2 December 1973 on the Leader LP of a Christmas singing tradition recorded in South Yorkshire pubs, A People’s Carol. The album’s booklet commented:

This carol is found in other parts of the country and is quite distinct from the ‘figgy pudding’ or the ‘pocketful of money’ versions. It has always been a great favourite locally for it occurs in many of the older manuscript books and is frequently mentioned in the newspaper accounts. The tradition of repeating the last phrase as with the tail-tag in Good News is widespread and can also be heard in Awake, Arise Good Christians and Foster.

Jon Boden, Jess and Richard Arrowsmith, Gavin Davenport, Fay Hield and Sam Sweeney sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth as the 18 December 2010 entry of Jon’s project A Folk Song a Day.

Bella Hardy sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas in 2012 on her CD Bright Morning Star.

Kate Rusby sang the Yorkshire Merry Christmas in 2015 on her Pure album The Frost Is All Over.

Lyrics

We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Roud 230) from Village Carols

We wish you a merry Christmas;
We wish you a merry Christmas;
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a happy New Year.

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer.

We won’t go until we get some;
We won’t go until we get some;
We won’t go until we get some, so bring some right here.

We wish you a merry Christmas;
We wish you a merry Christmas;
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

George Dunn sings Open the Door

Open the door, think of the poor.
Please to let the New Year in,
The old one out, the new one in.

A pocket full of money, a cellar full of beer,
A good fat pig to last you all the year.

Wiggy Smith sings The Cock Flit Up in the Yew Tree

Oh the cock flit up in the yew-tree
The hen come chittelin’ by

Chorus (after each verse):
I wish you merry Christmas and every day a pie.
A pie, a puddeny peppercorn
The fattest pig that ever was born
So open the door and let the New Year come in.

God bless this lady of this house
Beside the master too

Please leave me a little piece
For singing it so well

Nowell Sing We Clear sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Open the door, think of the poor.
Please to let the New Year in,
The old one out, the new one in.

Chorus (after each verse):
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

A pocket full of money, a cellar full of beer,
A good fat pig to last you all the year.

The roads are very dirty, the pocket very thin,
Please, mister master, chuck a penny in.

If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you.

The cock sat up the rue tree, the hen come chuckling by,
We wish you Merry Christmas, and every day a pie,
A pie, a pie, a pie, a peppercorn,
A pie, a pie, a pie, a peppercorn.

John Kirkpatrick et al sing Open the Door

Open the door, think of the poor.
Please to let the New Year in,
The old one out, the new one in.

A pocket full of money, a cellar full of beer,
A good fat pig to last you all the year.

The cock sat up the rue tree, the hen come chuckling by,
I wish you a Merry Christmas, and every day a pie,
A pie, a pie, a pie, a peppercorn.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Roud 9681) sung at the Royal Hotel

We singers make bold, as in days of old,
To celebrate Christmas and bring you good cheer.
Glad tidings I bring of Messiah, our King,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

The shepherds amazed, as upwards they gazed,
Behold! Holy angels to them drawing near,
Singing “Goodwill to men!“ as onwards they came,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Lets join heart and hand to keep God’s command,
By loving to serve Him throughout the New Year.
In an innocent way we’ll be happy today,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas,
So we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!