CAROL (0E. •od,. from Bret. koroll, dance. Gael. canal, melody. from car, bar of music, Ir. (-He, a tiirn, ultimately, perhaps, connected with 11% C(//'/*. cart. Lat. curruN, cart). In the stricter a popular religious swig intended to form part of the rejoicings connected with the great" Christian festivals. The kinship of the earlier English carols with similar French •oin posit is evideneed by the frequent recur relive ill them 4.4 the refrain 'Nowell.' a variant of the Fr. .Vocf, Christmas (Lat. mthife, birth day) ; though they had a wide popularity ill the .\ges on the Continent of Europe. they are especially associated with English tradition. Their use seems to have been at its height under the the universal familiarity with them is shown by the specific prohibition ill 15'2.i. when Henry V111. lay seriously ill, of "carols, Lolls. or merry-making." Ill 1502 license was given to Thomas Tysdale to print "certayne goodly Cal-lollies to be songe to the glory of God." The Puritans, in their general onslaught on the observance of Christmas, when holly 111111 ivy were nude seditious badges. at tellIpt ell to (11(.111; hilt they •ilIlle back With t he 1 test()l'a i0111, and 111 1661 appeared 7'he Neu. ru rots for I tic .11 vt-ry rimy of VImriskmu.c. to
5c11ifililt I'lcaNan Ta tics. To this day it. is the custom in many parts of England for troops of men and boys. known as 'waits,' to go about the villages for several nights be fore Christmas. singing carols in the open air. s a rule, the best carols are the oldest, although one of the most popular, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night," was composed in 1703 by no better a poet than Nahum Tate, and the ancient spirit has been successfully caught in recent by Swin burne. William Morris, and John Alason Neale. The older carols. usually set to pleasing and not difficult melodies, have the characteristics of popular poetry in general. They are simple, picturesque, and often childlike in their naircifI to the point of seeming to persons of less nu training to border on irreverence. A. manuscript of the Fifteenth Century now in the British Museum (ed. Thomas Wright, Lon don. 1847), contains a number of the most fa mous early carols. The best collection, however, of both the ancient and modern types is Christ Hi 01•018, Old (nil .Weir (London, 1874), the words edited by H. II. Brantley, and the music by Sir John Stainer.