This hymn is a traditional English carol from the
county of Dorset, possibly from some time during 1820 to 1830 and known to
have been sung in the locality of Puddletown. It appeared in the Thomas Hardy Memorial Collection
and in a carol collection by George Hansard in 1830. A carol with very similar
lyrics was published in Wiltshire Folksongs and Carols in 1904 under
the name "The Second Britford Carol".Nearly 100 years later A
Collection of Dorset Carols was put together by W.A. Pickard-Cambridge
and published in 1926.It has
also been published in the 1992 The New Oxford Book of Carols.
