Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 23 · Carols of the Nativity Story · Page 39 in print
What Child Is This
The tune of What Child Is This is old. On September 3, 1580, Richard Jones and Edward White each registered a Greensleeves ballad with the Stationers’ Company in London.
Jump to a word
The words
Bristol
Dix’s birthplace in 1837.
Chatterton Dix
William Chatterton Dix, who wrote the carol’s words.
Hymnology Archive (opens a new tab) · Hymnology Archive: William Chatterton Dix (opens a new tab)
Dowland
The Dowland Lute Book, an early source of Greensleeves.
Elderton
William Elderton, whose 1581 ballad is the oldest surviving print for the tune.
Falstaff
The Shakespeare character who calls for thunder to the tune of Greensleeves.
Glasgow
The city where Dix worked in a marine insurance office.
Hymnology Archive (opens a new tab) · Hymnology Archive: William Chatterton Dix (opens a new tab)
Greensleeves
The Elizabethan tune to which the carol has been sung since 1868.
Hymnology Archive (opens a new tab) · Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (opens a new tab)
Lute Book
A handwritten book of lute music, where early copies of Greensleeves survive.
Merry Wives
Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor, which names Greensleeves twice.
Ox and Ass
The animals feeding beside the manger in the carol’s second verse.
Richard Jones
The printer who registered a Greensleeves ditty on 3 September 1580.
Stationers
The London company where Greensleeves ballads were registered in 1580.
William Ballet
Owner of the lute book with the oldest good copy of Greensleeves.
William Byrd
The Tudor composer who quoted Greensleeves in a fantasia.
Windsor
The town of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the play that names Greensleeves.
Sources
- William Chatterton DixHymnology Archive author page for W. Chatterton Dix (quoting Edwin Hatfield, The Poets of the Church, 1884)
- Hymnology Archive (Chris Fenner, 2018), article ‘What child is this with GREENSLEEVES’Hymnology Archive
- William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Project Gutenberg eBook #1517Project Gutenberg