White Coral Bells: A Song History

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None of the sources consulted here names a writer for "White Coral Bells." The oldest printing they record is in Hollis Dann's Fourth Year Music, a volume of the Hollis Dann Music Course published by the American Book Company in 1916. There the round about lilies of the valley appears under the title "May Bells," with no composer or poet credited.[1][2] The Traditional Ballad Index points out that most other pieces in that book do name their authors. It suggests the missing credit could mean an older, perhaps nineteenth-century, origin, but that is a guess, not a documented fact.[2]

Color lithograph of a spray of lily of the valley with white bell-shaped flowers and long green leaves

Goodwin & Company, Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes, color lithograph, 1890. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its lilies of the valley, the flower the round is about; it has no connection to the song.

Later traces of the round come largely from schools and camps. It is on the 1965 Silver Burdett record set Making Music Your Own Grade Three.[3] The Ballad Index tags it as a camp song, cites printings in songbooks such as The Ditty Bag, and judges it "a genuine folk song" while admitting its subject is a puzzle.[2] A 2018 recording of Girl Scouts singing it at a History Harvest gathering is preserved in Remembering Camp Scott, an online archive hosted by Oklahoma State University Libraries.[4]

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Sources

  1. Internet Archive: "Hollis Dann Music Course: Fourth Year Music" (American Book Company, 1916).
  2. The Traditional Ballad Index: "White Coral Bells".
  3. Internet Archive: "Making Music Your Own Grade Three" (Silver Burdett Records, 1965).
  4. Oklahoma State University Libraries, Remembering Camp Scott: "White Coral Bells".