New Year Carol – 1st January, 2021

Danielle and Dave’s New Year greeting

1st January, , 2021

A New Year’s Carol

Benjamin Britten (1913 -1976)

Not all carols were for Christmas or Advent. This is a setting from 1934 by Britten of an old Pembrokeshire tune which is known by a number of names including ‘Levy-Dew’ and ‘Residue.’ Britten made many settings of folk songs from the British Isles. 

This setting has a rather cradle song-like feeling, but originally the song was about an old custom connected with water from a well to cleanse and purify people rather like the concept of baptism sanctifying new life in God. 

At new year children would take holly sprigs, dip them into the well water and flick the water at passers by to sanctify them at this auspicious new beginning but this may have been non-Christian in origin. 

In return they hoped for a small monetary payment or other gift. Doors could also likewise be sprinkled to purify a home in other parts of Wales and the custom was called ‘new water’ or ‘dwr newy’ in Welsh.

The custom has parallels in a Scottish practice at Hogmanay called ‘Saining’. This, too is about purifying the home but involves water from a ford crossed by both the living and the dead being sprinkled around the home as well as burning juniper bushes in the house for purification by the smoke (like incense in church).

The poet Walter de la Mare wrote down the text in a children’s collection called Tom Riddlers Ground in 1931. It seems he changed little from earlier folk versions of the words.

So what on earth does ‘Levy-Dew’ mean? Well, you can take your pick and maybe the answer refers to more than one of the possibilities: In Welsh, ‘A Cry to God’ is the phrase ‘Llef y Dduw’ which, of course could suggest an English corruption of the sounds. 

The Middle English word for lady (in the Christian context this would mean the Virgin Mary) is ‘Levedy’ and again, this sounds not unlike ‘Levy-Dew’ whilst French ‘Levez à Dieu’ could also suggest a cry to God, or raising the Holy Host or sacrament to God. 

There are other versions which reject these words altogether and use the word ‘residue’! The Levedy theory could derive from the cult of the well being a form of veneration of the Virgin Mary. The gilded Fair Maid spoken of below is suggestive to me of Mediaeval idols of the virgin.

Here we bring new water from the well so clear,

For to worship God with, this happy New Year.

Chorus (after each verse):

  Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew, the water and the wine,

  The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe;

Open you the West Door and turn the Old Year go.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin;

Open you the East Door and let the New Year in.

Another variant of the words gives the following as its first verse:

Here we bring new water from the well so clear,

For to cleanse  our spirits this happy new year.

Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew, the water and the  earth,

Let the old year go, so the new year can give birth.

The other verses are the same as in the Water de la Mare version.

https://spellerweb.net/cmindex/Celtica/LevyDew.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levy-Dew

Performed on Epiphone AJ-200 SCE acoustic guitar and Erat Grecian harp (1830s)