Why This Dark, Ancient Lullaby Still Belongs in Christmas: The Story of ‘The Coventry Carol’

Among the poignant and joyful Christmas songs celebrating the advent of Jesus to our world, “The Coventry Carol” stands out, and not just for its haunting melody. The carol’s shocking subject matter is the children King Herod murdered in Bethlehem following the birth of Christ. 

“This carol is not about the birth of Christ, at least not directly,” said Maggi Van Dorn, host of “Hark! The Stories Behind Our Favorite Christmas Carols.” “It’s about the terrible events surrounding Jesus’ birth as chronicled in the Gospel of Matthew. That is the Massacre of the Innocents.”

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‘The Coventry Carol’ First Appears in the 16th Century

Since the podcast began, every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the “Hark!” podcast chooses different Christmas carols and explores their history. This year, the podcast kicked off the Advent season with an episode on “The Coventry Carol,” with Van Dorn traveling to Coventry, England, and speaking to various experts there. The lyrics to the carol say:

Lully, lulla,
thou little tiny child,
by by, lully lullay.

O sisters too,
how may we do
for to preserve this day
this poor youngling,
for whom we do sing
by by, lully lullay?

Herod the king,
in his raging,
charged he hath this day
his men of might,
in his own sight,
all young children to slay.

That woe is me,
poor child for thee!
and ever morn and day,
for thy parting
neither say nor sing
by by, lully lullay! 

The song originated from a medieval mystery play. Malvern Carvell, a local historian born and raised in Coventry, told Van Dorn, “We don’t know who first wrote ‘The Coventry Carol,’ the text or the tune.”

“What we do know,” he said, “is that Coventry’s mystery plays themselves date back to the 1300s and 1400s. The carol appears much later, in the early 1500s written into the Shearmen and Tailors’ pageant.”