The Truth Sent from Above is an English folk carol of unknown authorship usually performed at Christmas. During the first part of the 20th century a number of English folk song collectors (people who traveled throughout England, Scotland, Wales and all their respective counties, located people who still sang songs that had come down to them by tradition, and notated and eventually published (and therefore, preserved) these folk songs for all all future generations. The texts collected for The Truth Sent from Above were all very similar. However, there were a number of variations on the tune used to sing the carol, based on the region were it was collected (mainly in Shropshire and Herefordshire). Cecil Sharp, England's most prolific folk music and dance collector, who collected and notated over 5000 English folk tunes, notated an eight stanza version of the carol from a Mr. Seth Vandrell and Mr. Samuel Bradley of Donnington Wood in Shropshire. In addition, he noted that a longer version existed in a locally printed carol book. Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (also an avid folk song advocate and collector) obtained a different version of the carol at King's Pyon, Herefordshire in July 1909 with help from Ella Mary Leather, the Herefordshire folklorist who had first collected it from the local oral tradition. This version, which contains only four stanzas, is therefore sometimes referred to as the Herefordshire Carol.
This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love,
Therefore don't turn me from your door,
But hearken all both rich and poor.
The first thing which I do relate
Is that God did man create;
The next thing which to you I'll tell
Woman was made with man to dwell.
Thus we were heirs to endless woes,
Till God the Lord did interpose;
And so a promise soon did run
That he would redeem us by his Son
And at that season of the year
Our blest Redeemer did appear;
He here did live, and here did preach,
And many thousands he did teach.
God grant to all within this place
True saving faith, that special grace,
Which to His people doth belong;
And thus I close my Christmas song.
The Truth Sent from Above - The Gesualdo Six
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