Today is Childermas or the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a day that is still important in the Catholic Church and which was one of the Twelve Days of Christmas in Tudor times. Let me tell you about it in today's Claire Chats video talk.
As I said in last week's Claire Chats talk on carols, the Coventry Carol was a song sung as part of the Coventry Mystery Plays at the part that told of the massacre of the infants. Here are its lyrics in the original spelling.
Lully, lulla, thow littell tine child,
By by, lully, lullay thow littell tyne child,
By by, lully, lullay!
O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This pore yongling for whom we do singe
By by, lully, lullay?
Herod, the king, in his raging,
Chargid he hath this day
His men of might in his owne sight
All yonge children to slay,—
That wo is me, pore child, for thee,
And ever morne and may
For thi parting nether say nor singe,
By by, lully, lullay.
Last week, I shared it being sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, but here are some other versions:
