Ein Kindlein in der Wiegen

Ein Kindlein in der Wiegen. German traditional carol, 16th century or earlier. This carol is found in Geistliche Nachtigall der Catholischen Teutschen, the 1649 edition of the major Catholic collection, Groß Catolisch Gesangbuch, by David Gregor Corner*. From this text is taken the translation in The Oxford Book of Carols (1928) by Robert Graves (1895-1985) beginning ‘He smiles within his cradle’. In OBC the provenance is given as ‘Austrian, 1649’. But as The New Oxford Book of Carols points out (pp. 214-15), Corner’s printing of the text does not have his initials, ‘and the melody may well be a folk tune’. The words are found in an Augsburg printing of 1590 (Wackernagel, Das Deutsche...