All Bells In Paradise

A few weeks ago I shared an old carol from Derbyshire to kick off the festive season, but didn't get much chance to go into the background of the song. There's actually a number of English carols which tell more or less the same story - "Corpus Christi Carol" is a famous example - and yet, its origins remain quite nebulous.

The general upshot of the tale, as commonly spun in each variation, is that some dead bloke is lying in a lavish but deserted mausoleum, bleeding eternally from open wounds that won't let a little thing like exsanguination put them off. His blood is nourishing a variety of flora and fauna around the place, but his identity remains a mystery, beyond being described as a knight in most versions. There are clear allegories to Jesus, and yet like most old carols, also hints of pagan imagery amongst the blood and wildlife. More intriguingly, the concept of a knight whose wounds never heal harks back to Arthurian tales of the Fisher King, so badly injured in battle that he's now only fit to look after the Holy Grail whilst reeling in the occasional cod.

The Black Country's take on the ever-popular Sir Bleeds-A-Lot anthem differs slightly from Down In Yon Forest and Corpus Christi Carol in its setting; rather than an orchard or forest, the dead knight can be found in a park (presumably used in the archaic sense of "a hunting ground" rather than a scuzzy patch of grass with a climbing frame and a set of goalposts), and he's being attended to by some kind of vampire dog. Other than that, we're on very familiar ground, so I'll leave you with Jon Raven's excellent rendition of All Bells In Paradise.


Over yonder's a park which is newly begun
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
It's gold on the outside and silver within
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

And in that park there stands a hall
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Which is covered all over with purple and pall
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

And in that hall there stands a bed
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Which is hung all around with silk curtains so rare
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

And in that bed there lies a knight
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Them wounds they do bleed, by the day, by the night
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

At that bedside there lies a stone
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Which is our blessed Virgin Mary there kneeling on
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

At that bed's foot there lies a hound
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Which is licking the blood as it daily runs down
And I love sweet Jesus above everything

At that bed's head there grows a thorn
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring
Which has never so blossomed since Christ he was born
And I love sweet Jesus above everything