Christmas Song Story: Shepherds Arise

Shepherds Arise! Be Not Afraid is first recorded by a church in Dorset England. The carol dates back to the 19^th century.

The carol was first published in the 1926 A Collection of Dorset Carols.  The book was published by William Adair Pickard-Cambridge, a classics scholar and organists, who obtained several manuscripts from the early 19^th Century.

The author of Shepherd’s Arise in unknown and was included in this college.

The original manuscripts were destroyed during World War II and Pickard-Cambridge’s edition remains the oldest source of this text.

A second version of the carol although considerably different, can be found in a 19^th Century manuscript located in the Dorset Record office.