Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Lectures: ‘While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night’: A Paradigm of English Village Carolling for Three Centuries, Ian Russell

Sheffield is renowned for its carolling tradition in which unique and beautiful variants of well-known (and some less well-known) carols have evolved. But why has one carol above all others become the most widely sung lyric in the English vernacular carolling tradition during the last three centuries? By what means did these words become so widely circulated, and how has their popularity been sustained? Why have the singers/musicians been inspired to create and recreate so many musical settings to this text in order to celebrate each Christmas anew?

This lecture will summarise the history and development of the carol, ‘While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night’, and provide key examples of the tunes adopted in its musical pathway in tradition. It will examine the significance of the text in terms of setting and characters, as well as the sacred and secular nature of its performance in the carolling communities of the Pennine hills of south Yorkshire and north Derbyshire, whilst shedding light on the vernacular Christmas carolling tradition.

Ian Russell, Professor Emeritus, is the former Director of the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen (1999-2014). Since 1969 he has conducted extensive fieldwork into singing traditions in the English Pennines, especially Christmas carolling – see The Sheffield Book of Village Carols (2011) and The Derbyshire Book of Village Carols (2012). He is the founder and Director of the Festival of Village Carols, and the President of the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention.