From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1775, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1922
Cecil Sharp included this carol in his English-Folk Carols (1911) with the following note:
Sung by Mr. James Beale and Mrs. Harding at Ham Street.
The words are obviously very corrupt. The first and the last two stanzas in the text are substantially as they were sung to me, but it has been necessary to make some small alterations in the other two stanzas. In making these changes I have been guided by a broadside version of the song printed by J. Nicholson of Belfast, which however, in some places is almost as unintelligible as the Ham Street version. The Irish broadside is a Masonic song in nine stanzas beginning thus:
Come all you Craftsmen that do wish
To propagate the grand design,
Come, enter into our high temple
And learn the art that is divine.The last two stanzas given me at Ham Street are not in the broadside.
This carol is, and has been for many years, annually sung at Christmas in Ham Street and the neighbouring villages by a party of male carol singers. I have not found or heard of it elsewhere; nor can I connect the air, which is a strong one, with any other English folk-tune.
A broadside version entitled Sons of Levi, A New Masonic Song can be found on the National Library of Scotland’s Word on the Street website where it is stated that “the song was eventually inherited, from the Freemasons, by the Orange Lodge and is still part of their repertoire. The song is a description, in biblical terms, of a new member’s initiation”.