"A Christenmesse Carroll"
Words and Music: English Traditional
Source: William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868)
Compare: A bonne! God wote - Thomas Wright
See generally Wassailing - Notes On The Songs
1. A bone, God wot!
Sticks in my throat --
Without I have a draught
Of cornie ale,
Nappy and stale,
My life lies in great waste.
Some ale or beer,
Gentle butler,
Some liquor thou us show,
Such as you mash
Our throats to wash,
The best ware that you brew.
2. Saint, master, and knight,
That Saint Malt hight,
Were pressed between two stones;
That sweet humour
Of his liquor
Would make us sing at once.
Master Wortley, I dare well say,
I tell you as I think,
Would not, I say,
Bid us this day,
But that we should have drink.
3. His men so tall
Walk up his hall,
With many a comely disk;
Of his good meat
I cannot eat,
Without I drink, I wis.
Now give us drink,
And let cat wink,
I tell you all at once,
It sticks so sore,
I may sing no more,
Till I have drunken once.
Husk's Note:
This curious specimen of an ancient drinking song is contained in a manuscript written early in the sixteenth century, and preserved in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum. It bears the title of "A Christenmesse Carroll."
Also found in Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), p. 246. Rickert gives the date as in the reign of Henry VIII.
Also found in Henry Vizetelly, Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851) gives the title as "A Christenmesse Carroll" and puts the source as a manuscript at the commencement of the sixteenth century, then in the British Museum (MS Cott. Vesp. A, XXV., fol. 168, vo).
Vizetelly also notes that "Good ale, however, like most other things when taken in excess, is attended by certain inconveniences, as the following song, who forms an appropriate moral to the two preceding ones [this and Bring Us In Good Ale], will serve to explain:" Ale Makes Many A Man To Stick At A Brier.
