Deck the Halls

Composer or tradition

The melody now known as “Deck the Halls” is traditional Welsh material, so its original composer is unknown. It circulated as “Nos Galan,” a New Year’s Eve song, before English-language holiday lyrics became attached to it. Welsh harpist, antiquarian, and royal musician Edward Jones included an early printed form in Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards in 1784. Jones preserved and published the material; the surviving tradition does not justify naming him as the tune’s composer.

The modern English song took shape through another editorial collaboration. In 1862, harpist John Thomas published an arrangement in Welsh Melodies with Welsh poetry by John Jones, known as Talhaiarn, and new English words by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant. Oliphant’s “Deck the hall” text is an adaptation for an English audience rather than a literal translation of the Welsh verses. That distinction lets the archive credit each contributor without erasing the older anonymous tradition.