Traditional. Musical composition recorded by Thomas Mawdyke, 1591.

The Coventry Carol stands out from the modern canon of Christmas carols in two respects. First, it is among the oldest widely-performed carols, dating back to at least the Renaissance. Moreover, it takes as its subject matter a singularly mournful aspect of the Christian nativity myth: the Massacre of the Innocents, an incident in the Gospel of Matthew in which Herod I, the historically attested king of Judea under Roman rule, is said to have responded to astrologers' prophecy of the birth of Jesus as a future king by ordering his soldiers to kill everyone in his kingdom aged two years and under, necessitating the Holy Family's temporary flight to Egypt as refugees. (While Herod himself was very much a real person, modern scholarship suggests the Massacre of Innocents is not a verifiable historical event, but instead a literary recapitulation of the circumstances of the birth of Moses in the book of Exodus.)

The carol appears in a mystery play, taking the narrative point of view of the mothers of the slain children:

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Chargid he hath this day
His men of might in his owne sight
All yonge children to slay...

In 2025, years into livestreamed siege warfare against civilian populations in both Ukraine and Gaza, there is certainly no way that a modern audience can relate to a story about imperial conquest and geopolitical maneuvering leading to the widespread, systematic killing and displacement of children. Thank goodness we live in a more civilized age!