Or: Hey For Christmas

Words English Traditional

Music: Dargason

Source: William Chappell, The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time. London: Chappell & Co., 1859.

Come Robin, Ralph, and little Harry
And merry Thomas to our green
Where we shall meet with Bridget and Sary
And the finest girls that e'er were seen
Then hey for Christmas a once year
When we have cakes, with ale and beer
For at Christmas every day
Young men and maids may dance away

Editor's Note: The full song runs to 16 verses (Chappell, A Collection of National English Airs), which, unfortunately, were not provided by Chappell in The Ballad Literature. As The Hawthorne Tree does not relate to Christmas, it is not included here.

William Chappell, The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time. London: Chappell & Co., 1859, pp. 65-66.

Dargason¹

In Ritson's Ancient Songs, class 4 (from the reign of Edward VI. to Elizabeth) is “A merry ballad of the Hawthorn tree,” to be sung to the tune of Donkin Dargeson. This curiosity is copied from a miscellaneous collection in the Cotton Library (Vespasian A. 25), and Ritson remarks, “This tune, whatever it was, appears to have been in use till after the Restoration.” I have found several copies of the tune; one is in the Public Library, Cambridge, among Dowland’s manuscripts. The copy here given is from the Dancing Master, 1650-51, where it is called Dargason, or the Sedany. The Sedany was a country dance, the figure of which is described in the The Triumph of Wit, or Ingenuity displayed, p. 206. In Ben Jonson’s Tale of a Tub, we find, “But if you get the lass from Dargison, what will you do with her?” Gifford, in a note upon this passage, says, “In some childish book of knight-errantry, which I formerly read, but which I cannot now recall to mind, there is a dwarf of this name (Dargison), who accompanies a lady, of great beauty and virtue, through many perilous adventures, as her guard and guide.” In the Isle of Gulls, played by the children of the Revels, in the Black Fryars, 1606, may be found the following scrap, possibly of the original ballad:

“An ambling nag, and a-down, a-down,
We have borne her away to Dargison.”

See also “ Oft have I ridden upon my grey nag,” page 63. In the Douce collection of Ballads (fol. 207), Bodleian Library, as well as in the Pepysian, is a song called “The Shropshire Wakes, or hey for Christmas, being the delightful sports of most countries, to the tune of Dargason.” It begins thus:

“Come Robin, Ralph, and little Barry,
And merry Thomas to our green;
‘Where we shall meet with Bridget and Sary,
And the finest girls that e’er were seen.
Then hey for Christmas a once year,
When we have cakes, with ale and beer,
For at Christmas ‘every day,’
Young men and maids ‘may dance away,” &c.

There are sixteen verses in the song. The tune is one of those which only end when the singer is exhausted; for although, strictly speaking, it consists of but eight bars (and in the seventh edition of The Dancing Master only eight bars are printed), yet, from never finishing on the key-note, it seems never to end. Many of these short eight-bar tunes terminate on the fifth of the key, but when longer melodies were used, such as sixteen bars, they generally closed with the key-note. There were, however, exceptions to the rule, especially among dance tunes, which required frequent repetition.

The tree made answer by and by,
I have cause to grow triumphantly,
The sweetest dew that ever be seen,
Doth fall on me to keep me green.

Yea, quoth the maid, but where you grow
You stand at hand for every blow,
Of every man for to be seen,
I marvel that you grow so green.

Though many one take flowers from me,
And many a branch out of my tree;
I have such store they will not be seen,
For more and more my twigs grow green.

But how, an they chance to cut thee down,
And carry thy branches into the town?
Then they will never more be seen
To grow again no fresh and green.

The above will be found in Ritson’s Ancient Songs, in Evans’ Collection of Old Ballads (vol. i., p. 342, 1810), and in Peele’s Works, vol. ii., p. 256, edited by Dyce. It is included in the last named work, because in the MS. the name of "G. Peele” is appended to the song, but by a comparatively modern hand. The Rev. Alexander Dyce does not believe Peele to have been the author, and Ritson, ‘who copied from the same manuscript,' does not mention his name.

Though that you do it is no boot,
Although they cut me to the root,
Next year again I will be seen
To bud my branches fresh and green.

And you, fair maid, can not do oo,
For ‘when your beauty once doeo go,’
Then will it never more be seen,
As I with my branches can grow green.

The Maid with that began to blush,
And turn’d her from the hawthorn bush;
She thought herself so fair and clean,
Her beauty still would ever grow green.

*     *     *

But after this never I could hear
Of this fair maiden any where,
That ever she was in forest seen
To talk again with the hawthorn green.

Note from Chappell:

1. This tune is inserted in Jones’ Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards, p. 129, under the name of “The melody of Cynwyd;” and some other curious coincidences occur in the same work. At page 172, the tune called “The Welcome of the Hostess” is evidently our “ Hitter Rant.” At page 176, the tune called “Flaunting two,” Is the country dance of “The Hemp Dresser, or the Lon don Gentlewoman.” At page 129, “The Delight of the men of Dovey,” appears to be an inferior copy of “Green Sleeves.” At page 174, is “Hunting the Hare,” which we also claim. At page 162, “The Monks’ March” (of which zones says, “Probably the tune of the Monks of Banger, when they marched to Chester, about the year 603,”) is “General Monk’s March,” published by Playford, and the quick part, “The Rammer;” and at page 142, the air called “White Locks” is evidently Lord Commissioner Whitelocke’s coranto, an account of which, with the tune, is contained in Sir J. Hawkins’ History of Music, vol. iv. page 51, and in Barney’s History of Music, vol. iii. page 878. In several of these, particularly in the last, which is identified by the second part of the tune (and especially by a very different version, under the same name, in Parry’s Cambrian Harmony, published about fifty years ago), there is considerable variation, as may be expected in tunes traditionally preserved for so long time, but their identity admits of little question. In vol. ii., at p.28,” The Willow Hymn” is, “By the oslers so dank.” At p. 44, “The first of August” is, “Come, Jolly Bacchus,” with a little admixture of ”In my cottage near a wood.” At page 83, a tune called “The Britons,” which is in The Dancing Master of 1696, is claimed. At p. 45, “Mopsy’s Tune, the old way,” is “The Barking Barber,” and “Prestwich Bells” is “Talk no more Whig or Tory,” contained in many collections. At vol. iii, p. 15, “The Heiress of Montgomery” is another Venice of “As down in the meadows.” At p. 16, “Captain Corbett” is “Of all comforts miscarried;” and at “If love’s a sweet passion,” is claimed.” In addition to these, Mr. Jones has himself noticed a coincidence between the tune called “The Ring’s Note,” (vol. iii) and “Pastyme with good Company.” Such mistakes will always occur when an editor relies solely on tradition. Return