The Ukrainian New Year’s Carol you didn’t know you knew

You’ve probably never heard of Shchedryk (and probably have even greater difficulties trying to pronounce it), but watch the video above and you’ll quickly recognize a familiar tune. That’s because the Christmas favorite “Carol of the Bells” was not always an English carol, nor was it a Christmas carol.

Shchedryk, meaning “bountiful evening,” is a Ukrainian New Year’s song dating back to 1916. Known in English as “the Little Swallow,” the song tells the story of a swallow that flies into a home and sings of the wealth that will come the following spring. The English translation reads:

Shchedryk, shchedryk, shchedrivka
A little swallow flew
and started to twitter,
to summon the master:
“Come out, come out, O master,
look at the sheep pen,
there the ewes have stumbled
and the lambkins have been born
Your goods are great,
you will have a lot of money,
if not money, then chaff:
you have a dark-eyebrowed wife.
Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka,
A little swallow flew.

Cecilia Music