Cumbria carollers ‘gobsmacked’ over While Shepherds Watched story (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Cumbria carollers ‘gobsmacked’ over While Shepherds Watched story

1:50pm Thursday 24th December 2009 in

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A NATIONAL news story claiming the ‘discovery’ that the carol While Shepherds Watched was sung to other tunes, including one from a popular folk song, has been derided by Cumbrian carollers.

Roger Bush, a tenor with the Cautley Carollers, of Sedbergh, said: “I was gobsmacked when I heard the news on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It was one of their headline stories and told how an esteemed musicologist from Durham University had ‘just discovered’ that the words of the song While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night used to be sung to other tunes incl-uding On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at.”

Mr Bush said it was widely known the carol had been sung to that and other traditional tunes contin-ually over generations.

David Burbidge, bass singer with the Cautley Carrollers and organiser of the Dent Folk Carols festival, said: “It's amazing that a leading music res-earcher didn't know all this.”

A spokesman for Durham University said: “The BBC chose to interpret the press release we sent out in a way which was somewhat mis-leading. We didn’t say it was a new revelation that people sang this carol to On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at or, indeed, other traditional tunes.

“What the research sho-wed was that the carol had been sung to the other tunes in churches and not just village pubs.

“Professor Dibble found evidence that While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks was the first carol to cross over to the Church of England from the secular folk tradition.”