The First Noel

Gilbert's West Country carols. Davies Gilbert (1767 to 1839) was a Cornishman, born Davies Giddy, who changed his surname in 1817 ^[17][18][19]. In 1822 he printed Some Ancient Christmas Carols, eight carols with their tunes ^[2][9]. His preface, signed from Tredrea, his family home, says these carols were sung "in Churches on Christmas Day, and in private houses on Christmas Eve, throughout the West of England, up to the latter part of the late century" ^[1][17]. He wanted to keep them "in their actual forms", partly for "the delight they afforded him in his childhood" ^[1].

The words in 1823. A second edition followed in 1823. Gilbert explained that he had found "several other Carols from the same part of England", but had "not succeeded in his best endeavours to get more of the ancient Tunes" ^[1]. The First Nowel is Carol IX, on pages 28 and 29, the first of the twelve new carols ^[1][9][10]. It has nine numbered verses, with the refrain printed in full after the first and the last, and no music ^[1][13][14]. Gilbert spells the word "Nowel", and his fourth verse sends the star to "Bethlehem Jury", where "she took up her rest" ^[1].

The tune in 1833. William Sandys (1792 to 1874) was a London solicitor and antiquary with a love of music ^[20][21][10]. His Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (London, 1833) prints the carol on pages 74 and 75 under the heading "For Christmas Day in the Morning", with the same nine verses, a few words changed, spelled "Nowell" ^[3][11]. His notes say that part of his book was chosen from "upwards of one hundred obtained in different parts of the West of Cornwall", some already in "Mr. Gilbert's collection" ^[3]. At the back of the book, among its eighteen tunes, is "The First Nowell", in D major and 3/8 time, with a bass line under the melody ^{[3][9][10][11]}. It is the earliest known printing of the tune ^[9][10].

Stainer's four parts. In 1867 Henry Ramsden Bramley, a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and John Stainer (1840 to 1901), the college's organist, brought out the first series of Christmas Carols New and Old, twenty carols published by Novello ^{[4][6][9][16][15]}. Some references date it 1868 or 1871, but Novello's advertisement of 1 December 1867 already lists No. 6, "The first Nowell" ^[6][11][14]. In the 1870s printing we read, The First Nowell is No. VI, on pages 12 and 13: Stainer's four voices in D major in 3/4 time, with six verses ^[4][6]. An undated illustrated edition of the first two series, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel and dated 1871 by the Hymnology Archive, kept it as No. VI ^[5][12]. Stainer's version fixed the familiar form of the tune ^[9][11]. By 1914 the collector Cecil Sharp could call it simply the tune "to which it is nowadays sung (see Bramley and Stainer, No. 6)" ^[7].

Where did the tune come from? Nobody knows. The puzzle is its shape: it repeats one short phrase again and again, and it closes on the third note of the scale instead of the home note ^[8][11]. In 1914 Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote that he had always found the tune hard to link with English folk song as he knew it ^[7][11]. In 1915 the folk-song scholar Annie Gilchrist told how she had found, the summer before, in the old tune books of the village choir at Orton in Westmorland, a Christmas hymn tune whose treble part, above the tune, ran very like The First Nowell ^[8][11]. She took the carol tune for "a relic" of that old singing in parts, a harmony line passed down by treble singers instead of the tune itself, and later traced the hymn tune to the composer Jeremiah Clarke ^[8][11]. It remains a theory.

Myth and record. Often told: the carol first sang of "three poor shepherds", and later singers changed it to "certain poor shepherds" because the Bible gives no number ^[11]. What the record shows: the earliest known printing, Gilbert's of 1823, already has "certain poor Shepherds" ^[1]. Sandys's words of 1833 have "three poor Shepherds", but the words under his own printed tune say "certain poor Shepherds", and so does Stainer ^[3][4].

Nowell. Chaucer has the word in the Franklin's Tale, at a winter feast: "'Nowel' cryeth every lusty man" ^[22][3]. So the refrain is a cheer, sung four times, followed by its reason: "Born is the King of Israel".

Verse 1. The angel's first "Nowell", the first news of Christmas, came to poor shepherds out in the fields with their sheep, as in Luke ^[25]. "That was so deep" means the depth of the night: an old dictionary gives "in deep of night" for its most still and solemn part ^[23].

Verses 2 and 3. The star the shepherds see in the east shines day and night, and by its light three wise men come from far to seek a king. In Matthew the wise men say "we have seen his star in the east", but Matthew never says how many came ^[25].

Verse 4. The star moves to the north-west and stops over Bethlehem, "right over the place where Jesus lay", as in Matthew it "stood over where the young child was" ^[25]. Gilbert's "Bethlehem Jury" is Bethlehem in Jewry, that is, in Judea, Matthew's "Bethlehem of Judaea" ^[1][23][25].

Verse 5. The wise men kneel and offer gold, myrrh and frankincense, the three gifts in Matthew ^[25].

Verse 6. Everyone is asked to sing praises to the Lord, who made heaven and earth "of naught", out of nothing ^[23], and bought mankind with his blood.

The verses Stainer left out. Gilbert and Sandys have three more ^[1][3]. In one, a wise man goes into the house and finds "the Babe in poverty". In another, the child is born "between an ox-stall and an ass" and laid in the manger among the hay, "for want of clothing". The last promises that if we live well we shall be free from hell, for God has prepared for us all "a resting place in general", that is, for everyone. Stainer also has "On a cold winter's night" for the older "In a cold", "Full reverently" for "Most reverently", and "Their gold" for "Both gold" ^[4][1][3].

It began as a carol of Christmas itself: Gilbert describes carols sung in church on Christmas Day and at home on Christmas Eve, and Sandys heads it "For Christmas Day in the Morning" ^[1][3]. In 1833 Sandys wrote that in the West of England, "especially in the western parts of Cornwall", singers still went "from house to house", and in some parish churches met on the night of Christmas Eve, "singing-in the sacred morning" ^[3]. It opens with the shepherds, but most of its verses follow the wise men, so it is also sung as an Epiphany carol ^[13][11]. Its tune is THE FIRST NOWELL, in an irregular meter with a refrain ^[14][15]. The Hymnal 1982 prints six verses at No. 109, with Stainer named for the music ^[15].

Our arrangement is read from Stainer's four parts for No. VI of the first series, in a printing of the 1870s: in D major and 3/4 as printed, starting on a one-beat pickup ^[4]. His tune and chords are kept, with the lower parts revoiced for beginners, one note to each syllable. We sing verses 1 and 2, each followed by the chorus, with the words as Stainer prints them, "Nowell" and "lookèd" included ^[4]. It is for two to four singers: two take soprano, on the tune, and alto, a third adds the bass, and the tenor makes four.

• Nowell and Nowell (Camborne). In 1914 the Folk-Song Society's journal printed a Cornish version Cecil Sharp had noted in Camborne, sung by Bartle Symons. It begins "Nowell and Nowell, the Angels did say" to a related tune. Sharp noted that it was popular in Camborne and often sung "O well and O well" ^[7][11].

• Soprano: the tune, from low D to top D. The first line climbs the whole octave, from the low D on "First" to the top D on "Angel"; many syllables there take two notes, as "The", "First" and "Now-" do, so keep them smooth. In each chorus the top D comes on the third "Nowell", "Born" and "Israel".
• Alto: under the tune all the way, one note to each syllable, most often on F-sharp. It starts on its lowest note, A, for "The First". Its top A comes only twice, on "Angel" and "keeping" in verse 1.
• Tenor: the middle of the chord, one note to each syllable, most often on A, then D. In each chorus "Born is the King" is all one D and "of Israel" all one A: keep them steady. Its top E comes only three times: "in" in "in fields as they lay" and "that" in verse 1, and "both" in verse 2.
• Bass: the bass line, one note to each syllable, most often on D, then A and F-sharp. It starts on D for "The First" and ends each chorus on D. Its low G comes only in the chorus, on the end of the third "Nowell" and on "the" in "Born is the King".