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INTRODUCTION
HE term "Carol" is not an easy one to define. The Rev. H. R. Bramley's definition—a kind of popular song appropriated to some special season of the ecclesiastical or natural year—is, perhaps, the best that has been devised; it is, at any rate, wide enough to embrace all the songs in this collection. Formerly there existed carols associated with Easter (e.g. "The Moon shines bright") and other festivals of the Church's year; but the carol of the present day is almost invariably connected with the season of Christmas.
Unhappily, like many another ancient traditional custom, that of Christmas carol singing by parties of men and women in the village streets is gradually disappearing. At one time, and not so very long ago, the number of carols that were sung in this way in different parts of England must have been very large, to judge by the carol broadsheets and chap-books that have been preserved. Hone, too, in his Ancient Mysteries Described (pp. 97–9), quotes the first lines of no less than eighty-nine carols, all of which, he says, were then, i.e. 1822, being annually printed. Several of the carols in Hone's list are included in this collection, viz.—Nos. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 and 19; perhaps also Nos. 2 and 21. Probably all, or very nearly all the words of the carols mentioned by Hone might still be traced; of the tunes, however, to which they were traditionally
