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While Shepherds Watched
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks /
Sweet Chiming Bells / Hail Chime On
[
Roud 936
; Ballad Index OBC033
; Bodleian
Roud 936
; GlosTrad
Roud 936
; Mudcat 115776
, 134467
; words Nahum Tate (1652-1715)]
Ralph Dunstan: The Cornish Songbook Ian Russell: The Sheffield Book of Village Carols The Derbyshire Book of Village Carols
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks is a Nativity hymn written by Nahum Tate in 1696, with its words entirely based on the Gospel of Luke. It is sung in the South Yorkshire village carols tradition to a lot of different tunes. Versions of this hymn are often named after their tunes, e.g. Winchester Old, Cranbrook, Foster, Liverpool, Lyngham, Pentonville, or Sweet Chiming Bells.
Scan Tester played the tune of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks in a 19 August 1964 recording by Reg Hall. It was included in 1990 on his Topic double LP anthology I Never Played to Many Posh Dances, in 1998 on the Topic anthology You Lazy Lot of Bone-Shakers (The Voice of the People Volume 16), and in 2006 on the Free Reed 4 CD box set Midwinter.
Bob Hart sang While Shepherds Watched in a home recording made by Bill Leader in 1969. This was included in 2007 on Bob Hart’s Musical Traditions anthology A Broadside.
George Dunn sang While Shepherds Watched at home at Quarry Bank, Staffordshire, in a recording made by Roy Palmer on 14 June 1971. On the same day he also sang a variant of this song titled While Shepherds Were Watching that is sufficiently different from the usual that Steve Roud gave it a number of its own, 16898. Both versions were included in 2002 on Dunn’s Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker. Rod Stradling noted on the first song:
Shepherds Watched is almost certainly the best-loved and most-sung carol among ordinary English people, particularly in country areas. It also seems to boast a bewilderingly large number of tunes to which it may be sung. One can imagine that few collectors asked for it, assuming it to be the ‘normal’ church version rather than a ‘folk carol’, and Roud only lists eight people from whom it has been collected in these islands. Of these, Bob Hart can be heard singing it on A Broadside (MTCD301-2), Walter Pardon on Put a Bit of Powder on It, Father (MTCD305-6), and Billy Harrison plays three different versions on Yorkshire Fiddle Tunes and Songs (MTCAS201).
This version of the carol is attributed to Nahum Tate, and was first published in 1700. George learned it from his father—though neither of them were churchgoers. George knew a further, and very unusual, variation of this carol, also learned from his father.
A Adams, R Leach and R Palmer, eds. Feasts and Seasons: Winter (Glasgow and London, 1977), p.9 (first verse and tune).
Several Village Carols albums include variants of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks:
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Carollers at the Fountain, Ingbirchworth, recorded on 9 December 1973 sang two different versions of While Shepherds Watched on the Leader anthology of a Christmas singing tradition recorded in South Yorkshire pubs, A People’s Carol. The album’s booklet commented:
Liverpool is the most popular version of While Shepherds Watched and is another rousing fuguing tune attributed to John Hall. At the Fountain they sing only the first two verses and the last and Cyril’s prompting is reminiscent of the practise of “lining out” which was formerly a feature of singing in the chapels before hymn books were available for general use. Here the style of singing is very distinctive for its strong clear harmonies and the exaggerated ralentando which invariably leads to a lush resolution.
Foster or Old Foster, as it is known further south, was written by John Foster of High Green House and first published in his second volume of Sacred Music about 1820, where it appears complete with symphony written for eleven parts and set to the 47th psalm. It is interesting to note the unusual form of this rendition of the opening phrase.
- Foolow carollers sang versions of Lyngham, Foolow, Watchful Care, Buckley, October, Awake, Awake, Awake, and Heaven’s Our Home live on location in Foolow in the Peak District on 1 October 1994. All were published on the 1994 Viilage Carols cassette and 2011 CD On This Delightful Morn.
- Carollers at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth sang Liverpool, Pentonville and Old Foster on 3 December 1995; these recordings were released on the 1996 Village Carols CD Hark, Hark! What News.
- Carollers at Chilwell Road Methodist Church, Beeston, Nottinghamshire sang The Old Tune, Winchester Old, Shaw Lane, Belmont, and Northrop on 23 March 1997; these recordings were released in the same year on the Village Carols CD Brightest and Best.
- Carollers from the Royal Hotel, Dungworth sang Fern Bank at Grenoside Cummunity Centre on 30 November 1996 during A Festival of Village Carols 1996.
- Carollers from the Royal Hotel, Dungworth sang Pentonville, carollers from the Blue Ball Inn, Worral sang Sweet Chiming Bells, carollers from the Fountain Inn, Ingbirchworth sang Foster and the Coal Aston Carollers sang Expectation—all in 1995 recordings that were included in 1999 on the Smithsonian Folkways album English Village Carols.
- Carollers from the Fountain, Ingbirchworth sang Hail Chime On in 2004, carollers from the Village Carols Festival 2006 sang Old Foster and Pentonville, and carollers from Stannington sang Fern Bank in 2008 on the 2017 Village Carols double CD The Theme, the Song, the Joy.
The Watersons sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks in 1977 on their Topic album Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy. A live version from a December 1980 Christmas radio programme performed at Crathorne Hall, Crathorne, North Yorkshire, was published in 2005 on the CD A Yorkshire Christmas. Waterson:Carthy recorded this carol again in 2006 for their CD Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man. A.L. Lloyd noted on the Watersons’ original album:
The words of this old favourite are by Nahum Tate (1652-1715), a dreadful Poet Laureate, lambasted by Swift and Pope, but a fair hymn-writer on a good day. The well-known tune, called Winchester Old, comes from a psalm book of 1592, but not all country congregations took to it, and here and there Tate’s words got sung to less familiar airs. The Watersons got their tune from the good Norfolk singer Walter Pardon. Walter says he can’t remember if it came into his family from chapel or Salvation Army.
Walter Pardon of Knapton, Norfolk sang While Shepherds Watched to Mike Yates on 2 August 1978. This recording was included in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Put a Bit of Powder on It, Father. Rod Stradling noted:
Almost certainly the most well-loved and most-sung hymn among ordinary English people, particularly in country areas. It also seems to boast a bewilderingly large number of tunes to which it may be sung—Walter’s is called Lyngham. I’m told by someone who knows about these things that what Walter sings here is a combination of the tune and the first harmony part—just as anyone might who has heard the whole thing sung, but had not been formally taught to sing one or other of the parts.
The Albion Band sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks in their 1984-85 Albion Band Christmas Show. This led to their 1985 LP A Christmas Present From The Albion Band and was also included in 1990 on their cassette Songs From the Shows. The Albion Christmas Band also sang Sweet Chiming Bells on their Talking Elephant albums An Albion Christmas (2003) and Traditional (2009), and on their 2014 Rooksmere album One for the Road.
The Mellstock Band sang While Shepherds Watched in 1986 on their Saydisc album of carols and dances of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, Under the Greenwood Tree. This track was also included in 2010 on their and Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band’s compilation CD O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. They noted:
At one time nearly every parish in England had its own distinctive version of this popular carol. The setting in the Hardy manuscripts lacks the tenor line, but it is easy to reconstruct. The splitting of words in the ‘fugueing’ passage was characteristic of west gallery music, to the disgust of Victorian church reformers.
Billy Harrison (1898-1986) of Pocklington, East Yorkshire sang Sweet Chiming Bells, and sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks and played it solo and together with Jim Eldon, on their Musical Traditions 1987 cassette and 2003 CD, Yorkshire Fiddle Tunes and Songs. Jim Eldon noted:
Chiming Bells: this is the way Billy has sung While Shepherds with the Millington carol singers until recent years. He says, “I was ganger like, wi’ t’ pitch fork. I used to pitch it when we sung out of chapel or church. I was there wi’ pitch fork. Then we used to chord quietly then I used to start off.”
While Shepherds (Father’s tune): Billy knows all the parts to this and says that at one time he could sing the lead and play the bass part on cello at the same time. The Millington lot sang the same tune to a different carol Old Jacob, but for the Harrison family it was While Shepherds. The Elliott family of Birtley, County Durham, well known for their family repertoire of songs from the Durham coalfields, recall this as their mother’s tune for While Shepherds. Like Billy Harrison they have only ever heard it in the family setting, not in church or chapel.
Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band sang While Shepherds Watched in 1991 on their Park CD Carols and Capers. This track was also included on their 2012 Park compilation A Christmas Caper. A live recording from Oxford Town Hall was released in 2005 on their Park CD and DVD An Evening of Carols and Capers.
Ray Driscoll sang While Shepherds Watched to Gwilym Davies at Drulwich, London on 27 October 1993. This recording was included in 2008 on his Artension CD Wild, Wild Berry. Gwilym Davies noted:
Village communities often had their own repertoire of carols, sung in a pub or carol-singing context rather than the church. The village of Hanwood in Shropshire, where Ray lived during and after WW II, had and still has its carols, sung in the Cock Inn at Christmas. Ray’s tune for While Shepherds Watched to the tune Lyngham is well known throughout England and was reportedly composed by Thomas Jarman in the early 19th century.
Nowell Sing We Clear sang Old Foster on their 1995 CD Hail Smiling Morn!. They noted:
Hail, Smiling Morn, Old Foster, and Jacob’s Well are from the Yorkshire pub Christmas singing traditions found in several parts of the city of Sheffield. Our versions are taken from The Joy of Christmas: Words & Music of Traditional & Local Carols, compiled and presented by Worrall Male Voice Choir, privately published, ca. 1980.
Coope Boyes & Simpson sang While Shepherds Watched [Lyngham] in 1998 on their No Masters CD A Garland of Carols.
They also sang While Shepherds Watched [Pentonville] with Georgina Boyes on the same album, and they and Wereldkoor Wak Maar Proper sang it in 1999 on their No Masters / Vredesconcerten Passendale album Christmas Truce Kerstbestand. They noted on the first album:
[Lyngham] The words of While Shepherds were written by Nahum Tate, who was made Poet Laureate in 1690. Described as “a free, good natured, drinking companion”, he was nothing if not versatile, producing books on tea, angling and in 1696, a metrical version of the psalms. While Shepherds was included in this collection and until 1820 was one of the few hymns which the Church of England permitted to be sung in services that was not a metrical version of the Psalms. The carol was also a perennial feature of Christmas Garlands.
Lyngham was composed by Thomas Jarman, a tailor from Clipstone, Northamptonshire in 1821. It is the favourite tune for While Shepherds in North Yorkshire, which is where Jim Boyes learnt it as a child while singing with local carollers in Nawton.
[Pentonville] Carols with ‘fuguing’ tunes featuring repeated words and intricate harmonisation, sung robustly and without inhibition are part of a flourishing local tradition still found in Yorkshire and Derbyshire—especially in villages around the north of Sheffield and Rotherham.
Increasing disapproval of elaborate arrangements meant that the traditional carols were not always included in Christmas services, so from at least the turn of the century in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire the best performances were recognised as taking place in pubs. And that is where they can still be heard—sung with enthusiasm, knowledge and affection, sustained by the sheer enjoyment to be had from singing them.
Composed by William Marsh of Canterbury around 1800, Pentonville is an essential part of the tradition of carol singing in South Yorkshire and was included in A Selection of Hymns for Christmas Day to be sung at Wesleyan Chapels in Sheffield published by J. Pearce of Sheffield in 1833.
Coope Boyes & Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes sang While Shepherds Watched (Hail Chime On) and While Shepherds Watched (Liverpool) in 2006 on their No Masters album Voices at the Door and they sang Sweet Chiming Bells in 2011 on their No Masters CD Fire and Sleet and Candlelight. They noted:
[Hail Chime On] This cheering and melodic version of While Shepherds is a great favourite at carol sessions at The Black Bull, Ecclesfield, near Sheffield. As wisely noted beneath the three versions of While Shepherds included in A Song or the Time: Local and Traditional Carols as Sung in Grenoside (1990), “The words are by Nahum Tate. The melodies are many.”
Text: Attributed to Nahum Tate (1652–—1715). Tune and additional text: Anon.
Under the title, Song of the Angels at the Nativity of Our Blessed Saviour, While Shepherds was one of sixteen hymns added to Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady’s New Version of the Psalms of David (1696) on its republication in 1700. As divinely inspired biblical texts, psalms were seen as the only permissible forms of musical worship—the general use of hymns in Anglican services was very limited until the 1820s. Perhaps because it was included in a book of psalms and stuck very closely to the gospel of Luke 2:8-14, however, While Shepherds escaped this prohibition and—as the only hymn specified for use at Christmas—became one of the most widely sung of all carols. Nahum Tate, Poet Laureate and “free, good natured, drinking companion”, never claimed to have written the lyrics, though since its earliest appearances, the words have always been attributed to him. We have not been able to discover the author of the additional text and tune that turn this While Shepherds into Hail Chime On, but would love to find them.
[Liverpool] We learned this version of While Shepherds from hearing it at pub carol sessions in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It’s one of dozens of tunes to which While Shepherds is sung across the country.
Text: Attributed to Nahum Tate (1652–1715). Tune: Edward Harwood (1707–1787) of Darwen, Lancashire, from A Second Set of Hymns and Psalm Tunes (1786).
Like many of the composers of village hymns, Harwood was not a trained musician but worked as a weaver. Despite his long life, two books of hymn and psalm tunes published under his own imprint in Chester seem to be the only surviving examples of his writing. As these contain Vital Spark, his setting for Alexander Pope’s poem, The Dying Christian to his Soul which became the bestloved funeral hymn in the English-speaking world for over a century and Liverpool which is still sung by village carollers today, his musical legacy is assured. Apparently, Harwood was himself a singer—and as anyone who has sung While Shepherds to his joyful, fugueing tune will confirm—it shows.
[Sweet Chiming Bells] After the Reformation, While Shepherds Watched by Nahum Tate (1652–1715) was the first and—for many decades—the only carol permitted to form part of Church of England services. Originally titled Song of the Angels at the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour, Tate’s text came to be sung to a multitude of different tunes—from the decorous one note per syllable of Winchester Old to ornately fugued extravaganzas like Pentonville. This anonymous While Shepherds with its Sweet Bells chorus is a favourite across Yorkshire and Derbyshire and has strong associations with Salvationists. Our version here owes more to the wonderfully lightfooted performance of the Rotherham Salvation Army Band at carol sings on ‘Holly Sunday’ at The Travellers Inn in Thorpe Hesley than the ones that are usually sung.
Coope Boyes & Simpson also sang While Shepherds Watched (Chime On), While Shepherds Watched (Liverpool), and While Shepherds Watched [Pentonville] in 2008 on their No Masters CD witn Michael Morpungo, On Angel Wings. And Coope, Simpson, Fraser & Freya sang Northfield While Shepherds in 2014 on their No Masters album Hark Hark on which they noted:
Barry [Coope]’s idea to set the most popular of Sheffield Carol words to tune 155 from The Sacred Harp hymnal.
BACCApella, singers of the BACCApipes Folk Club, sang While Shepherds Watched (Liverpool) on their 1999 album The Haworth Set.
The Millen Family sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks on their 2001 CD Down Yonder Green Lane. George Frampton noted:
The words [are] of poet laureate Nahum Tate to Thomas Jarman’s tune Lyngham or Nativity which was popular in the Ashford area well into the twentieth century. Howard and Gerald each told me that they also sang the words to Winchester Old (Este’s Psalmody, 1592) and Crimond (written by Jessie Irvine in 1872). Howard also sang me a snatch of a fourth tune which I have since identified as John Wainwright’s “Old Christians”—more often found to accompany Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn. When we last met, Gerald and Howard sang it to yet another contrapuntal tune which I have heard nowhere else in the country.
Finest Kind sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night on their 2004 Christmas album Feasts & Spirits. They noted:
Until 1782, this text was the only Christmas hymn legally authorized by the Church of England. And what do you do for decades when you can sing only one set of words the whole of Christmas? You make up dozens of tunes for it, of course—and keep on adding to them even after other carols are made legit.
Finest Kind brings three of these traditional tunes together for a While Shepherds medley. The first, popular in the U.S. and known by Ann [Downey] since her childhood, comes from a 1728 opera by George Frederick Handel. The second is sung in Yorkshire pubs at Christmas under the title Pentonville. The third setting, entitled Cranbrook was eventually purloined and popularized as the melody of the unofficial and raucous Yorkshire national anthem, On Ilkley Moor Baht’at’.
Ian Giles, John Spiers, Jon Boden and Giles Lewin sang While Shepherds Watched in 2006 on their Gift of Music CD An English Folk Christmas.
Magpie Lane sang Foster (While Shepherds Watched) in 2006 on their Beautiful Jo album Knock at the Knocker, Ring at the Bell. Andy Turner also sang While Shepherds Watched as the 11 December 2015 entry of A Folk Song a Week. Magpie Lane noted on their album:
One area famous for its carols is South Yorkshire. In villages around Sheffield, rather than singing in the streets, carol-singers have found a home in pubs. At any of the pub carol-singing sessions you will hear at least one setting of While Shepherds Watched in some you may hear the words sung to half a dozen different tunes during the course of an evening. Our setting is based on a recording made by Ian Russell at the Fountain, Ingbirchworth, in the 1970s. It is referred to locally as Foster or Old Foster, a reference to its composer, John Foster of High Green, Yorkshire (1762–1822).
And Magpie Lane sang Sweet Chiming Bells at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Dunstan, Woking, on 7 December 2013. a recording of which included as the 20 December 2014 entry of Andy Turner’s project A Folk Song a Week. They also sang it in 2018 on their anniversary album The 25th on which they noted:.
Andy learned Sweet Chiming Bells in the 1970s from John Jones, singer and melodeon player with the Oyster Ceilidh Band. It’s a carol which is widely sung in Yorkshire—where the words of While Shepherds Watched are sung to dozens of different tunes—and in the Salvation Army. This version is as sung in John Jones’ home village of Meltham, near Holmfirth in South Yorkshire.
The Copper Family sang While Shepherds Watched on their 2007 album Coppers at Christmas. They noted:
If you were making a list of the greatest hits of all time, this would have to be one of them. Three hundred years and still going strong, the song succeeds in telling the Christmas story in direct but simple imagery. Words by Naham Tate (poet laureate and the man who rewrote King Lear and gave it a happy ending) it was included as A Hymn for Christmas Day in the so-called ‘New Version’ of psalms put together by Tate and his collaborator Nicholas Brady in 1696. It has been sung to dozens of common metre tunes including the one given here, which in style harks back to the days of the church bands. This tune was known by the Horsted Keynes anglo concertina player Scan Tester, which suggests it was well known in Sussex.
Kate Rusby sang two variants of While Shepherds Watched on her 2008 CD Sweet Bells. Both variants have additional choruses that gave them their titles: Sweet Chiming Bells and Hail Chime On. She also sang Sweet Chiming Bells on her 2017 CD Angels & Men. And she sang Cranbrook on her 2011 CD While Mortals Sleep. A live recording from 8 December 2012 was released in the following year on her DVD Live at Christmas.
Jon Boden, Jess and Richard Arrowsmith, Gavin Davenport, Fay Hield and Sam Sweeney sang While Shepherds Watched both to the tune Pentonville and in the Sweet Chiming Bells variant at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth as the 4 and 5 December 2010 entries of Jon’s project A Folk Song a Day. He sang it alone with his concertina to the tune Lyngham on 20 December.
Pecsaetan, Pecsaetan Partners and Members from Sheffield Folk Chorale sang Sweet Bells in 2011 on their Sevill House album celebrating 10 years of Pecsaetan Morris, At One With the Bells.
Mary Humphreys and Anahata sang Sweet Chiming Bells on their 2012 album A Baker’s Dozen. Mary Humphreys noted:
This is one of the many tunes used in the North of England for While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks written by Nahum Tate and published in 1703. I think I first heard it sung in Ripponden at the Ryburn club and it stuck fast in my memory. Although I have heard lots of other tunes used such as Ilkley Moor and Willie o’ Winsbury, this is the one I like best. We had great fun putting all the extra harmony parts including cheesy chiming bells. We once sang this at a village Christmas party in Cambridgeshire to which the local vicar was invited. Her face was a picture during the song and the raucous chorus that everybody bellowed. I suspect that she had never heard a congregation take to a carol in quite the gleeful way they did that night. She made a very rapid exit afterwards.
John and Sally Kirkpatrick sang While Shepherds Watched in 2013 on his Fledg’ling album Every Mortal Place. He noted:
These words first appeared in 1700 in a Supplement to their New Version of The Psalms by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, and are usually attributed to Mr Tate. For the next eighty years or more this was the only authorised Christmas Hymn allowed in the Church of England. There was no music attached, so everybody made up their own, and by the time any further seasonal songs of praise were allowed a look in, While Shepherds had assumed its unassailable position at the centre of the Christmas repertoire, with hundreds of settings to choose from.
Charlotte Burne complained that most of the young carol singers she was subjected to in the 1880s had no apparent knowledge of the “ancient ditties”, but she does admit rather grumpily that at least they had some of the old tunes to While Shepherds Watched, including one called Arlington. She was so busy moaning that she forgot to mention that she had included three tunes to these words in the appendix at the back of her book. Although she doesn’t name it, one of these turns out to be Arlington, composed by Thomas Arne—the man who gave the world Rule Britannia. Another tune is named as Grace Triumphant. The third one, with no name, is as sung at Madeley, and this is the melody used here. I’ve added the refrain, so we can all have a good old sing, and as Miss Burne didn’t give it its full rank and title, I’ve christened this tune Annimesto. It’s an anagram of a part of Shropshire very dear to me.
This video shows Rosie Hood and friends (Jamie Roberts, Jefferson Hamer, Emily Portman, Ollie King and Matt Quinn) singing Sweet Chiming Bells at Cecil Sharp House, London in December 2015:
The English Acoustic Collective sang While Shepherds Watched in 2018 on their album Christmas Champions.
Doug Eunson and Sarah Matthews sang Sweet Chiming Bells on their 2019 CD Chimes. They noted:
A popular version of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night with a great chorus.
The Melrose Quartet sang Liverpool, “attributed to John Hall of Sheffield Park c. 1790s”, on their 2019 Christmas album, The Rudolph Variations.
GreenMatthews sang Sweet Bells on their 2020 CD Midwinter Revels. They noted:
We learned this song from One Accord, a superb vocal quartet from Lancashire who opened for us at a gig in Bolton on our 2018 Christmas tour. It’s an alternate take on While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night which adds a chorus to the familiar words. Our version features Sophie [Matthews] on her baroque musette—a French 18th-century bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes.
Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden sang Mount Zion in 2023 on their Hudson album Glad Christmas Comes. Jon Boden noted:
This tune is sung (with different words) at The Royal in Dungworth. We were in danger of not having a version of While Shepherds on this album, which is obviously not acceptable. While Shepherds is in “common metre” i.e. 8/6/8/6 syllables. As the name suggests, many other lyrics are also in this form which explains why there are something like fifty tunes in use for While Shepherds in Sheffield.
Janice Burns and Jon Doran sang While Shepherds on their 2024 album Great Joy to the New. They noted:
Our Monday nights in December are spent singing Sheffield carols at The Cumberland Arms in Newcastle upon Tyne. While Shepherds Watched is famously sung to many melodies, but Jon decided there still weren’t enough, so added one more.
Cooper & Toller sang While Shepherds Watched on their 2024 album Year’s End. They noted:
There are very many versions of While Shepherds. This one is from the great Black Country singer George Dunn. We found it on the Musical Traditions CD George Dunn: Chainmaker. George worked in iron foundries as a chain-maker in Quarry Bank, near Dudley. He once had a reputation in the area as a fine singer but in 1971, at the age of 84, it was rather for his knowledge of chain-making that George was visited by a researcher from Wolverhampton college. On discovering his song repertoire the researcher, Rhoma Bowdler, contacted BBC producer Charles Parker and a number of recording sessions followed. George learned this version of While Shepherds, recorded by Roy Palmer in June 1971, from his father, Sam. According to George, Sam was a keen ornithologist and a champion whistler. One summer he went out at night and hid in the local woods where he proceeded to imitate the song of the Nightingale, attracting audiences from far and wide. In George’s words: “It went on for about a fortnight until it got too big to ‘andle. There come too many people down at night. From Dudley and Brierley Hill and Wolver’ampton. It was summut special. When it got too ‘ot ‘e dae go no more. The Nightingale dae sing no more. That hoax was never known, only t’us kids. ‘E towd us about it.” Full disclosure: the chorus sung by George Dunn is “Christians rejoice with heart and voice, Christ is born in Bethlehem.” We changed this to “Let us rejoice with heart and voice, ring all the bells for Christmas Day.” The first tune is Chelford Races, from the Aston-on-Carrant manuscript in the Coleford Jig tune book. The second tune, after verse 4, is the Welsh jig Doed a Ddel, which means ‘Come What May’.
Seb Stone and Samuel Day sang Buckley and Foolow on their 2025 album Foolow Carols on which they recorded traditional carols from Foolow in Derbyshire, near where they both grew up. They noted:
[Buckley] The first of four settings of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night sung in Foolow, this is a favourite. Also known as Bradda tune after the village of Bradwell a few miles away, it’s sung in most villages in the Hope Valley. Its stately, rising fugue in the second half of the verse gives it a wistful, hopeful feeling.
[Foolow]
The second While Shepherds featured here, this version is named after the village, and is central to the tradition.
Lyrics
George Dunn sings While Shepherds Watched
While shepherds watched their flocks by night
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the lord came down,
And glory shone around.
On that great day, on that great day, on that great day.
Christians rejoice with heart and voice:
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Christians rejoice with heart and voice:
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
“Fear not”, said He (for mighty dread
Hath seized your troubled mind).
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.”
On this great day, … etc.
“To you in David’s town
Is born of David’s line
A saviour who is Christ the Lord
And this shall be the sign.
“The heavenly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands
And in a manger laid.”
Up spake the seraph and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels praising God, and thus
Addressed their joyful song.
“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace.
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.”
The Watersons sing While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
While shepherds watch their flocks by night
All seated on the ground,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around,
And glory shone around.
“Fear not,” said He (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled minds,
Had seized their troubled minds),
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind,
To you and all mankind.”
“To you in David’s town this day
Is born of David’s line,
Is born of David’s line
A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
And this shall be a sign,
And this shall be a sign.”
“The heav’nly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands,
And in a manger laid,
And in a manger laid.”
“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace,
And to the earth be peace;
Goodwill henceforth from heav’n to men
Begin and never cease,
Begin and never cease.”
Maddy Prior sings While Shepherds Watched
While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
“Fear not”, said He (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind);
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.
“To you in David’s town this day
Is born of David’s line
A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
And this shall be his sign:
“The heavenly Babe you there shall find
to human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands,
And in a manger laid.”
Thus spake the seraph; and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels praising God, who thus
Addressed their joyful song:
“All glory be to God in high,
And to the earth be peace;
Good-will henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.”
Kate Rusby sings Sweet Bells
While shepherds watch their flocks by night
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around.
Chorus (after each verse):
Sweet bells, sweet chiming Christmas bells,
Sweet bells, sweet chiming Christmas bells,
They cheer us on our heavenly way,
Sweet chiming bells
“Fear not,” said He (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled minds),
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.”
“To you in David’s town this day
Is born of David’s line
The Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
And this shall be the sign.”
“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace;
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.”
Kate Rusby sings Hail Chime On
While shepherds watch their flocks by night
All seated on, all on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around.
Chorus (after each verse):
Hail, chime on, chime on
Merry, merry Christmas bells chime on
Hail, chime on, chime on
Merry, merry Christmas bells chime on
“Fear not,” said He (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled, troubled minds),
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.”
“To you in David’s town this day
Is born of David’s, David’s line
The Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
And this shall be the sign.”
“All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth, the earth be peace;
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.”
(repeat first verse)
Acknowledgements
Transcribed from the singing of the Watersons by Garry Gillard.