Agincourt Carol


The Agincourt Carol is an English folk song written some time in the early 15th century. It recounts the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, in which the English army led by Henry V of England defeated that of the French Charles VI in what is now the Pas-de-Calais region of France.
The carol is one of thirteen on the Trinity Carol Roll, probably originating in East Anglia, that has been held in the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, since the 19th century. The other primary source for the carol is the contemporaneous Selden Carol Book held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
The carol is featured in Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V. The composer Ernest Farrar created his 1918 Heroic Elegy: For Soldiers on the basis of the Agincourt Carol.

Lyrics