Ding Dong! Merrily On High: A Song History

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The tune is a sixteenth-century French dance. It appears as “Branle de l’Official” in Orchésographie, a dance manual by “Thoinot Arbeau,” which is an anagram pen name of the cleric Jehan Tabourot.[1] The book was published in 1589, though the royal privilege for printing it was granted in 1588,[2] and some references date it 1588.[1][3] A branle is a chain dance, often moving in a circle, and its name comes from a French verb meaning to sway.[4] Hymns and Carols of Christmas describes this particular branle as mainly a dance of common people.[1]

Albrecht Dürer engraving of a peasant couple dancing energetically, arms flung out

Albrecht Dürer, Peasant Couple Dancing, engraving, 1514. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A German country dance rather than the French branle itself.

The English words are by George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934), an Anglican priest who often wrote verses to fit traditional melodies, mainly Renaissance ones.[5] The rare-book dealer Simon Beattie reports that the words had already been printed, without music, in Carols for Yule-tide (1922), a small book Woodward printed privately.[3] Words and tune were joined in The Cambridge Carol-Book (1924), which Woodward edited with the composer Charles Wood, who harmonized the melody.[1][5][6] Hugh Keyte, quoted in the same post, observes that although the carol can pass for an age-old one, “it is anything but.”[3]

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Sources

  1. Hymns and Carols of Christmas: "Ding Dong Merrily on High".
  2. Nicolas Graner: "L’Orchésographie de Thoinot Arbeau".
  3. Simon Beattie (rare books): "Ding dong! merrily on high" blog post, 3 December 2019.
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Branle".
  5. Wikipedia: "George Ratcliffe Woodward".
  6. Wikipedia: "Ding Dong Merrily on High".