This nineteenth-century version of the famous Elizabethan love song Greensleeves is a typical example of "moralizing," or turning a secular song into a religious composition. Around 1580, Greensleeves, which was also known as a "New Northern Dittye," appeared as "Greensleeves Moralized to the Scripture." Around 1865, William Chatterton Dix (1837-1889) wrote What Child Is This to John Stainer's (1840-1901) arrangement of Greensleeves. Dix's version was published in Christmas Carols New and Old (1871-80), edited by Stainer and Henry Ramsden Bramley. In sharp contrast to the words of the Elizabethan song, Dix's carol reflects the religious sentimentality of the Victorian era.

© Zoran Minderovic, Rovi