The song the Englishers know as “Carol Of The Bells” was originally not a Christmas carol, nor were there any bells in it. It was a song of the new year, which arrived in April, there in Ukraine, where the song was born, and it was called “Shchedryk,” which may mean “bountiful,” or maybe “the generous one," or, maybe, something else again.

The tale it tells comes from before the Christians came to Ukraine to change the calendar; when, at the new year, which was then in spring, a swallow flies into a farmer’s house, and there says to the man: Hey, go out and look at the sheep pen, the ewes are all happy, there are sheep babies, you have a lot of livestock, that’s good fortune, and you’ll make good money selling them, and, if not from that, then from all the grain that you have. And then the swallow says the farmer should be happy, not only because of that, but also because “you have a dark-eyebrowed wife.” With “dark-eyebrowed,” in Ukrainian, a synonym for “beautiful.” And you gotta figure these people know what they’re talking about, because, it is generally acknowledged, among the white people at any rate, that Ukraine, it produces, the most beautiful wimmins, in all the world.

Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych specialized in female a cappella choral works, and for “Shchedryk” he witch-brewed the ancient tale told above, four notes he found in an old folk anthology, and well-wishing tunes commonly sung from house to house in rural Ukrainian villages by young women bringing in the new year (these more or less akin to Englisher wassailing songs, which we’ll get into later in the Christmas, though those were, and are, most often sung by people seriously bibulous). Leontovych’s “Shchedryk” was meant to be sung solely by wimmins. Though, soon enough, some mens horned in. As, can be heard, below.

Leontovych generally thought his work stunk pretty bad. Sometimes he’d labor over a piece for years, then give up, and burn it. He rarely performed his own compositions, and he wouldn’t let anybody else present them; he was too embarrassed, they were so Wrong.

But “Shchedryk,” that got away from him. He’d really touched the live wire, with that one. And the people, of it, they would not be denied. Leontovych plucked it out of the ether in 1916, and, by the time he died, five years later, it was all over Ukraine.

Actually, Leontovych didn’t “die.” He was assassinated. On the night of January 22, 1921, he was straying at the home of his parents, in Kyiv, where he was visiting for the holidays. When a stranger, Afanasy Grishchenko, asked to stay the night. They know how to have winter in Ukraine, so if in January somebody asks if they can come in out of the cold, generally you say yes. As Leontovych, this night, said yes. Then, in the night, Grishchenko, he arose, and he shot Leontovych in the head. Leontovych died of blood loss, some hours later. Grishchenko had meanwhile moved through the house, robbing it, then sauntered out into the night. He was an agent of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police. Which became the KGB. Which became the FSB. They: are all: the same.

No one really knows for sure why these bolshies—these days, here in the sane and decent, we call them tankies—felt it necessary to kill this man. Probably that he was Ukrainian, that was enough. A common Russian brain malformation—today, for instance, Vlad The Man has it, and with bells on—is that there shouldn’t even be a Ukraine: it should be absorbed into Russia. That there existed a Ukraine, before there ever was a Russia, this matters not, to such people. At the time Leontovych was assassinated, Ukraine was independent, more or less—there was even a wild-hair stateless anarchist commune, fending off both tsarist-uber-alles Whites, and Trotsky's be-bolshie-like-me Reds—but the tankies, they did not want any such nonsense; and, they ended it, and soon enough, wholly swallowing Ukraine, into the USSR, by the end of 1922.

Leontovych wasn’t really into the politics—he wrote female a cappella choral works, for chrissake—but his work relied heavily on Ukrainian folk tradition. And the tankies didn’t believe there should be any Ukrainian folk tradition. The Ukrainians, they should be, you know, same, volk, as, Rooskis.

As so, of course, once Ukraine was back in the USSR, the decree went out: “Stop singing that ‘Shchedryk’ shit. If you don’t, we have plenty of bullets, to go into all of your brains. Here, try this song, instead: ‘Ode To The Tractor.’ From the best-selling lp: More Songs About Ugly Buildings And No Food. Album also featuring, ‘The Five Year Plan: Let’s Get Jiggy Wit It.’” And. So on.

Tyrants, they stomp on the music. Always. And. At all times. But, the music, it gives no shits. Alpha, omega: the music, it plays on.

Which is how there came to be “Carol Of The Bells.”

In 1922, while the tankies were overrunning, strangling, Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Chorus, it was touring the United States. On the program: what the playbill called “Shtshedryk.” The Americans, hearing this, they went wild. It didn’t matter, that they did not know what the words meant. Because: “if you music/at me/i will understand/’cause that is something everybody everywhere does/in the same/language.” In the audience, for the Chorus’ performance at Carnegie Hall, was Peter Wilhousky. American citizen. Ukrainian heritage. Composer and choral conductor. “Shchedryk”: it got into his head. And it wouldn’t get out. Eventually, he understood: he was supposed to do something with it. But he didn’t know what. Until, one day, it came to him. The song, it was ringing. There in his head. Ringing. Like, a bell does. And so: “Carol Of The Bells.” New song. Same song. Built. Atop. The old. Which was built. Atop. The old. Built. Atop. The old. And. So on. Alpha ∞ Omega.

Because. You will never stop. The dark-eyebrowed women. Ever.

[video:https://youtu.be/ejU1lK-3C4U]