Deck The Halls: A Song History

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The tune is Welsh and much older than the English words. It is known as “Nos Galan” (New Year’s Eve), and Hymnary.org gives its source simply as a Welsh dance tune.[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive lists it in print in John Parry’s British Harmony (London, 1781) and in Edward Jones’s Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784).[2] Jones’s book appeared again in 1794, and the verses he printed with the tune were a love song with no connection to Christmas.[3] The same source reports that scholars place the melody in the Welsh canu penillion tradition and link it to the carol’s early sense as a dance.[3]

Tall eighteenth-century Welsh triple harp with a painted wooden frame

John Richards, Welsh Triple Harp, wood and various materials, ca. 1750. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the tune’s Welsh roots.

The English Christmas words are by the Scottish writer Thomas Oliphant (1799–1873).[3][4] They were printed in 1862 with the tune in Welsh Melodies, with Welsh and English Poetry, a collection by the harpist John Thomas that paired Welsh verses by Talhaiarn (John Jones) with English verses by Oliphant.[4][5][6] Early writers sometimes called Oliphant’s text a translation of the Welsh, but it is not a close one.[5] Oliphant turned a New Year’s song into a Christmas one.[4] The carol was also included in John Hullah’s The Song Book, reportedly as early as its first edition of 1866.[3][5]

In America, one version appears in J. P. McCaskey’s Franklin Square Song Collection (Harper & Brothers, 1881). Editors have often altered the words since, and the carol circulates under several titles, including “Deck the Hall.”[7] Hymnary.org lists the tune, as NOS GALAN, in some twenty hymnals.[1]

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Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "NOS GALAN".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Nos Galan".
  3. Hymns and Carols of Christmas: "Deck The Hall".
  4. Wikipedia: "Thomas Oliphant (lyricist)".
  5. Wikipedia: "Deck the Halls".
  6. Hymns and Carols of Christmas: "Nos Galan".
  7. Hymns and Carols of Christmas: "Deck The Hall With Holly" (Franklin Square Song Collection, 1881).