This Endris Night

This Endris Night (also Thys Endris Night, Thys Ender Night or The Virgin and Child[1]) is a 15th-century English Christmas carol.[2] It has also appeared under various other spellings.[1] Two versions from the 15th-century survive, one republished in Thomas Wright, Songs and Carols Now First Printed, From a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (London: The Percy Society, 1847), and the other in the possession of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, Scotland,[3] a legal deposit belonging to the Faculty of Advocates, a role which was assumed by the National Library of Scotland from 1925 onwards. All non-legal collections where gifted to the National Library.

It has been praised for the unusual delicacy and lyrical flourish for a poem of the period.[3] The opening lyrics, in the Wright edition, are:

Thys endris nygth
I saw a sygth,
A stare as brygt as day;
And ever among
A mayden song
Lullay, by by, lullay.

It is rarely performed now.

References

  1. ^ a b Hymns and Carols of Christmas. "This Endris Night". http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/this_endris_night.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-08. 
  2. ^ Margaret Louise Kuhl (1976). "On Performing Wolf: Problems Inherent in the "Geistliche Lieder" from the Spanisches Liederbuch". University of British Columbia, Department of Music. https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/25684/UBC_1984_A1_5%20K83.pdf?sequence=1. Retrieved 2011-03-08. 
  3. ^ a b Hymns and Carols of Christmas. "Thys endrys nygth - Thomas Wright". http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/this_endris_nyghth.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-08.