The First Nowell 

I. Origins & Variants

The earliest example of this English carol was transcribed in a manuscript by John Hutchens for Davies Gilbert, ca. 1816–1817. This manuscript is currently held by the Kresen Kernow archive in Cornwall, England, item DG/92. The song appears on the first two pages of the collection, including the melody and nine stanzas.

Fig. 1. John Hutchens MS, Kresen Kernow DG/92.

This manuscript version of the carol starts with a narrative depiction of the angels appearing to the shepherds, then the star in the east, the journey of the magi, the settling of the star over Bethlehem, finding the infant in a house, offering the three gifts, the child lying among animals in a manger, a call to worship, and the promise of an eternal resting place. Every stanza carries the refrain “Nowell, . . . born is the King of Israel.”

This version of the melody, written in G major, is unique in the way the third measure outlines a IV chord (E-C-E) rather than progressing to the upper tonic, and the way each phrase ends on 2. Each of the three phrase pairs is nearly identical, effectively AAA, with some apparent exceptions for the rhythm of the text.

Davies Gilbert, the intended recipient of the manuscript, published Some Ancient Christmas Carols in 1822; this carol was included in the second edition, 1823. In the preface to his collection, he said the carols were collected from the West of England. He did not credit Hutchens with collecting the songs. He reproduced all nine stanzas of the text from the manuscript, but not the melody.

In his preface, Gilbert mentioned nowell as an English variant of the French term noel, and citing a French etymology dictionary, he relayed, “Le Mot de Nouel étoit autrefois un mot de rejouissance; on le crioit dans toutes les fêtes et solennités publiques” (“The Christmas word was formerly a word of joy; it was shouted at all public festivals and solemnities”). The word nowell is also similar to the French la nouvelle (les nouvelles), meaning news or tidings. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of this term in English was in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1395): “And Nowel crieth euery lusty man” (Franklin’s Tale, 1255).[1]

This carol was given a few years later in William Sandys’ Christmas Carols Ancient & Modern (London: Richard Beckley, 1833), words and melody, with the same nine stanzas as in Gilbert, but with some small variations. In his preface, Sandys indicated an awareness of the collection by Gilbert, along with a recognition of Cornwall as a locus for Christmas traditions, but this version was clearly not taken verbatim from Gilbert (or from Hutchens). The melody is different than the one Hutchens transcribed, given in D major, with some confounding rhythmic discrepancies between the melody and bass. This version includes a rise to the upper tonic in the third bar of the first phrase, but here the last two phrase pairs are made to be similar, as in ABB. Every phrase pair ends on 3.

Sandys did not specify where or how he found this carol, although many other sources—without citation—claim Sandys collected this in Cornwall in 1827. This carol was reprinted in Sandys’ Christmastide: Its History, Festivities, and Carols (1852), pp. 261–263, 318.

Fig. 3. Christmas Carols Ancient & Modern (London: Richard Beckley, 1833).
   

The carol text as found in Gilbert and in Sandys is the foundation for all modern versions.

The most common harmonization, and the accepted version of the melody, is the one published by John Stainer (1840–1901) in Christmas Carols New and Old, First Series (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1868). Stainer’s version of the tune is AAB; his model for this is unclear, unless this was his own creative choice. The distinctive parallel thirds in the tenor and bass in the refrain are a highlight of singing this arrangement. Alan Luff noted, “Stainer’s harmonization does not strive to make the tune more interesting than it is, but his inspired movement upwards in thirds in the first half of the refrain has come to seem to many singers an integral part of the whole.”[2]

II. Notable Variants

In 1860, an unusual variant of the carol was printed in William Wallace Fyfe’s Christmas: Its Customs and Carols (London: James Blackwood, 1860). No information was given as to its provenance; it was called a “favourite and beautiful solo.” Everything after the first phrase of the first stanza is unlike all other variants of this song, textually and musically, at least until the return of the refrain. The text of the other six stanzas accords well with Gilbert and Sandys.

Fig. 5. Christmas: Its Customs and Carols (London: James Blackwood, 1860).
  

Another variant of this carol, beginning “Nowell and Nowell,” was printed in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. 5, no. 18 (1914), pp. 26–27. This was collected by Cecil J. Sharp from Bartle Symons, who got it from James Thomas, who learned it as a boy from a Mr. Spargo. This version is said to have come from Camborne. Among the members of the society, this melody sparked discussion of a possible relationship to a Cornish wassail song, or even to “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.”

A year later, in vol. 5, no. 19 (1915), pp. 240–242, Annie G. Gilchrist published a hypothesis in which Sandys’ version of the tune was possibly derived from the treble harmony part of a tune by Jeremiah Clarke.

Fig. 7. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. 5, no. 19 (1915).
  

Another version of “Nowell and Nowell” was given in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. 8, no. 33 (1929), pp. 118–119. This one was also collected in Camborne. Here, the commentators (Annie G. Gilchrist and J.E. Thomas) called this melody “stronger” and “better” than what had been printed in 1914. Discussion was revived as to its resemblance to other tunes.

Erik Routley (1958, pp. 96–99) was especially keen on the idea of Sandys’ tune being a descant for one of these other tunes. In response to the all the discussion of this carol being derivative of other songs, the editors of the New Oxford Book of Carols (1992) offered this guidance:

No conclusion was reached, and there have subsequently been sporadic attempts to identify the tune to which “The first Nowell” was the “descant.” But the missing tune was a chimera and Sandys’s tune is in fact the “descant” to itself; or, in plainer terms, it evolved as an unconscious conflation of parts of the tune of the Camborne carol and the upper part(s) of some lost gallery setting(s). . . . Conflations of more than one voice-part were evidently commonplace in country choirs, and were certainly a recognized hazard when (as was customary) many of the singers learned their parts by ear.[3]

III. Assessment

Text

Erik Routley classified this carol among narrative ballad carols:

Two examples well known to everybody will be enough to show how ballad-carols told the story of the nativity. One is “God rest you merry,” which is written in ballad-metre in stanzas of three lines instead of the normal two, and with a refrain. . . . The other obvious example is “The First Nowell,” which is complementary to “God rest ye merry” in using the other normal ballad-metre, being written in rather halting verses of triple-time four-stress lines, and in recounting the story of the visit of the Wise Men. This again has a chorus in which everybody can respond to the narrative. It is a crude piece of writing, . . .[4]

Regarding the last complaint, popular author Robert J. Morgan expressed similar sentiments, as though the tune redeemed the text:

The poetry itself is plain. If we were to recite this rather lengthy piece, we’d get only a garbled sense of the Christmas story. There’s no indication in Scripture, for example, that the shepherds saw the Magi’s star. And the final verse of the original carol seems anticlimactic, but when combined with its wistful music, the words glow and our hearts are strangely warmed.[5]

In considering the way William Sandys’ version of the text mentions “three poor shepherds,” John M. Mulder explained:

The original version of the carol stipulated that three shepherds came to worship Jesus, and that phrase was modified for the sake of accuracy to “certain poor shepherds.” The idea of three shepherds was taken from the medieval mystery plays, where their names were Harvey, Trowle, and Tudd. Ian Bradley wryly notes that “clearly they were good Anglo-Saxons rather than Palestinians.”

Furthermore, geographical geeks have pointed out that “a star shining in the east” is impossible, since it would mean the three individuals (shepherds or wise men but not kings) approached Bethlehem from the Mediterranean. Hence, the New Revised Standard Version translates the wise men declaring that they have “observed the star at its rising,” though it offers “in the East” as an alternative translation and as a bow to tradition.[6]

In all fairness to the author of the carol, the King James Version reads, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (Mt. 2:2). In this context, the line could be interpreted to mean the magi were in the east and they saw the star from that position, as is the usual historical assumption. But the way the carol is written, this context is muddled, with “They looked up” referring to the shepherds, and “shining in the east” clearly meaning a matter of direction. This only works if we assume the shepherds were westward of Bethlehem and they were keen astronomers. But according to the Bible, the people around Jerusalem had not noticed the star (Herod had no idea), which makes sense if it drew the attention of skilled astronomers (magi) who looked for meaning in the movement of the stars, as opposed to the Jews, whose practices were only concerned with the movement of the moon. In the carol, stanza 4, the star moved northwest, which is possibly in reference to the magi following the star from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, except Bethlehem is south of Jerusalem, unless the author meant the magi saw the star first over the Arabian peninsula, then followed it as it moved northwest toward Bethlehem—but all of this postulating over the actual movement of the star is a significant burden for a folk carol to bear; perhaps too much.

Carl Daw, in attempting to offer some rationale for singing this text the way it stands, “nonscriptural” as it is, suggested the “collapsed narrative” of the carol “serves as a bridge” between Christmas and Epiphany. “This bridging quality is further evident in the refrain that both affirms and announces a birth simultaneously humble and royal.”[7] The editors of the Irish Companion to Church Hymnal (2005) also attempted to take a big-picture approach, saying, “What is important is that through the carol as a whole we are caught up in the joyfulness of the Christmas story, which gives us good reason to sing ‘Nowell.’”[8]

Other potential sticking points for editors include the widely irregular meter, the “cold winter’s night,” which is also not scriptural, and the “Three Wise Men” or “Wise Men three,” whose number are not given in the Bible but are traditionally assumed from the number of gifts.

Music

Erik Routley was not a fan of Sandys’ or Stainer’s version of the melody, calling it “a rather terrible tune.”[9] But considering his main concern was the repetition of material, the complaint seems odd. NETTLETON, for example, is AABA, with three identical phrases; ELLACOMBE is AA'BA' with three phrases starting the same way; whereas Stainer’s THE FIRST NOWELL is effectively AAB like the German bar form, such as EIN FESTE BURG, or JESUS MEINE ZUVERSICHT, whose original text has ten stanzas. His other concern was the way the tune doesn’t settle on the tonic note, but examples of this exist elsewhere in hymnody, such as William Bradbury’s tune WOODWORTH (“Just as I am”), in which none of the phrases end on the tonic; like THE FIRST NOWELL, Bradbury’s tune ends on 3. John M. Mulder countered Routley’s criticism by asserting, “Its popularity across national borders and among generations of Christians since the nineteenth century testifies to the fact that the musical repetition is both reassuring and inspiring.”[10]

Music directors often face repetition in hymnody, and rather than faulting the music, the solution becomes a matter of varying the performance. Carlton Young, in writing about this carol, suggested, “The mesmerizing effect of singing five stanzas and the refrain to three almost identical phrases can be relieved by alternating the stanzas between groups, some without accompaniment, with all singing the refrain.”[11]

Lastly, other commentators, as shown above and elsewhere, believe the tune has a quality unlike a traditional folk tune, in which parts of the tune feel like a soaring descant. Esteemed composer and editor Ralph Vaughan Williams, who had incorporated folk tunes into his work on The English Hymnal (1906), said of Sandys’ version, “It has always been difficult to my mind to connect the well-known tune with the English folk-song style as we know it . . .”[12] In his own work, RVW used the tune on several occasions. As a matter of entertainment, he discovered that “The First Nowell” could be sung as a canon and used to sing it that way at Christmas parties.[13] At his death in 1958, he left an unfinished nativity play based on “The First Nowell” for soloist, choir, and orchestra; this was completed by Roy Douglas. The tune makes appearances in Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912, used like a descant), On Christmas Night (1926, especially the prelude), and Nine Carols for Male Voices (1942).

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
21 August 2024

Footnotes:

1. “Nowell,” Oxford English Dictionary: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/nowell_int?tab=meaning_and_use#34352922

2. Alan Luff, “The first Nowell the angel did say,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3A, ed. Raymond Glover (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), p. 224. A similar sentiment is expressed by Paul Westermeyer in the Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 83.

3. Hugh Keyte & Andrew Parrott, “The First Nowell,” New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford: University Press, 1992), p. 482.

4. Erik Routley, The English Carol (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1958), p. 50.

5. Robert J. Morgan, “The First Noel,” Come Let Us Adore Him (Nashville: Countryman, 2005), p. 48.

6. John M. Mulder & F. Morgan Roberts, “The First Nowell,” 28 Carols to Sing at Christmas (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), p. 152. For the names of the shepherds, see also William Husk, “A Carol for the Epiphany,” Songs of the Nativity (1866), pp. 82–85: Archive.org

7. Carl P. Daw Jr., “The First Nowell,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), p. 154.

8. Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “The first Nowell the angel did say,” Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005), p. 299.

9. Erik Routley, The English Carol (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1958), p. 96.

10. Mulder & Roberts, 28 Carols to Sing at Christmas (2015), p. 152.

11. Carlton R. Young, “The First Noel,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), pp. 633–634.

12. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. 5, no. 18 (1914), p. 27.

13. Michael Kennedy, The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 2nd ed. (1980), p. 387.

Additional Resources:

“The First Nowell,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/the_first_nowell_the_angel_did_say

“The First Nowell,” Hymns and Carols of Christmas:
https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/first_nowell.htm

Alan Luff, “The first nowell the angel did say,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/t/the-first-nowell-the-angel-did-say

C. Michael Hawn, “The First Noel,” History of Hymns, United Methodist Discipleship Ministries (30 Dec. 2020):
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-the-first-noel