Twelve Days of Celtic Christmas with The Beggar Boys - Day 1

'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks'
Words by Nahum Tate (1700) and Henry Lebedinsky (2009)
Traditional tunes 'Is the Big Man Within?' and 'The Humours of Whisky'
Abigail Lennox, vocals
Michael Albert, whistle and fiddle
Larry Young, fiddle
Henry Lebedinsky, bouzouki
from 'The Night the Word Was Born: A Celtic Christmas LIVE'
produced by WDAV 89.9 fm Classical Public Radio.
Thanks to Frank Dominguez for permission to use the audio material.
This carol is a real Christmas pudding, made from some of our favorite jiggy tunes. We started with the 18th century hymn 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night' from Tate and Brady's 1700 supplement to the 'New Version of the Psalms'. We set it to the traditional song tune 'Tramps and Hawker Lads', adding a new refrain to make it work. We then sandwiched the verses between strains of a slip jig and added an introduction, the strange and wonderful old set dance 'Is the Big Man Within?' found in both James Kelly's 'Traditional Irish Music' and Chief O'Neill's 'Music of Ireland'. Big Man's first section is a slip jig (9/8 metre) while the second is a treble jig (6/8 metre), which is mirrored in the rest of the set, hopping between the two metres in the song (6/8) and the interludes (9/8).