Back to: The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols
“Greensleeves,” the tune to which “What Child Is This?” is sung, has a long history. It was apparently first licensed or registered in 1580 to a Richard Jones. It was mentioned as a “new northern dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves.” It was probably much older than this date.
Some theories have it that Henry VIII wrote the song. In any event, Henry’s daughter Queen Elizabeth is said to have danced to it; traitors were hanged as hired bands of musicians played its strains
In his Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare mentions it twice: in Act Two, “I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of ‘Green Sleeves’ “; and in Act Five, “Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of ‘Green Sleeves.’ “
In 1642 it was first used in a Christmas carol, “The Old Year Now Away Has Fled.”
For much of its early life, the tune known as “Greensleeves” was associated with pubs as a popular drinking song. Although God is mentioned in a closing verse of the best-known lyrics, nothing about the song closely resembled a religious piece; it was simply one of the era’s most popular folk songs. By the nineteenth century “Greensleeves” was almost as beloved as “God Save the Queen.”
The words for the carol come from William Chatterton Dix recording his thoughts of Christmas in 1865. His father had written a biography of the poet, Thomas Chatterton, which accounts for the middle name he gave his son. Additionally, it reveals the affection and intense passion for poetry which the father passed on to his son
Dix (1837-1898) was an insurance man by trade, but a poet and writer at heart. Serious about his writing, he studied other poets, read classic literature, and spent a great deal of time in college working on his creative craft.
Born in Somerset, England, in 1837, Dix found himself manager of a marine insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland, by the time he was twenty-five. Many correctly accused him of pursuing poetry as his passion and his job as a sideline venture.
A near-fatal illness robbed him of his strength and confined the man to bed for many months. As he lay near death, he often reflected on his faith. Not long after regaining his strength, an inspired Dix produced some of the greatest hymns ever written by an English layman. Songs by Dix such as “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!” and “As with Gladness, Men of Old,” are still being today. His work that Christmas was known as “The Manger Throne , a longer poem. three verses of which became “What Child Is This.”
The work is unique in the handling of the birth of Jesus. While the baby was the focal point of the song, the viewpoint of the writer seemed to be that of an almost confused observer. In a stroke of brilliance, Dix imagined visitors to the humble manger wondering who the child was that lay before them. The author wove a story of the child’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. Each verse also answered with a triumphant declaration of the infant’s divine nature.
The carol first appeared in Christmas Carols New and Old (London, 1867), edited by Bramley and Stainer. The latter half of the first stanza was made into a refrain for all three stanzas. The pairing with “Greensleeves” is thought to have been the work of Sir John Stainer (1840-1901)