Als I Lay on Yoolish Night - Medieval English Song
Vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is a Christmas carol from the 14th century, England, written in Middle-English. It uses a narrative framing device where an untold, lonely narrator sees a mother telling the story of the Nativity to her child. The instrumentation of this pieces uses the psaltery, both bowed and non-bowed, as well as the fidule. I did my best to emulate recordings whose pronunciation seems to be historically accurate, but I probably missed some minor phonetic elements here and there so keep in mind that this will probably be not be a perfect rendering of Middle-English.
Lyrics in Middle-English:
Lullay, lullay, lay lay, lullay:
mi deere moder, sing lullay.
Als I lay on Yoolis Night
alone in my longing
me thought I saw a well fair sight,
a may hiar child rokking.
The maiden wold withouten
song hir child o sleep to bring;
the child him thought sche ded him wrong
and bad his moder sing.
’Sing nou moder,’ said the child,
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