The Falcon

Lully, lulley; lully, lulley;
The fawcon hath born my mak away.

He bare hym up, he bare hym down;
He bare hym into an orchard brown.

In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hangid with purpill and pall.

And in that hall ther was a bede;
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.

And yn that bed ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.

By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.

And by that beddes side ther stondith a ston,
'Corpus Christi' wretyn theron.

Anonymous, 'The Falcon'

If you would like to hear how academics believe that this version may have sounded around the time it was written.

There are many, many extant versions of the Corpus Christi carol, from different parts of the country, with different additional verses and a multitude of different spellings, reflecting different dialect pronunciations (in Medieval times, English spelling was not standardised, and people tended to spell words as they sounded to them). What we provide here is a version parallel to the modern spelling version you have been working on, from the Oxford manuscript. Note that there is spelling variation within this version too, but it would not have been much of a communication problem - clearly those who worry about modern spelling have less to worry about than they imagine!

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