Christmas Carol Sing-Along · Christmas
Good King Wenceslas
Get ready for Christmas. Practise the carols at home, in your own time, on your own or with family and friends. First hear it, then sing it.
1 Listen
Let the choir sing it to you. Follow the music and the words.
2 Sing
Now it’s your turn. The organ plays, and the gold note shows the way.
Words by John Mason Neale, 1853. The tune is a medieval spring carol, printed in 1582.
On a phone? Turn it sideways and tap the full-screen button, and the music fills the screen.
John Mason Neale, an Anglican priest, wrote these words in 1853. They tell of Wenceslas, a tenth-century Duke of Bohemia remembered for his kindness to the poor, who sets out with his page on the feast of Stephen to bring food and fuel to a peasant.
The rest of the story
The tune is much older: “Tempus adest floridum”, a medieval spring carol printed in a book of Latin songs in 1582. Neale and Thomas Helmore found it there and gave it new words.
The words
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gath'ring winter fuel.
'Hither, page, and stand by me;
If thou know'st it, telling—
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?'
'Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain,
Right against the forest fence,
By Saint Agnes' fountain.'
'Bring me flesh, and bring me wine!
Bring me pine logs hither!
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear them thither.'
Page and monarch forth they went,
Forth they went together,
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather.
'Sire, the night is darker now,
And the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.'
'Mark my footsteps, good my page,
Tread thou in them boldly:
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.'
In his master's steps he trod,
Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing.