The 25 Strangest days of Christmas Day 16 - Carolers That Could Have Used an Uber App

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast and day sixteen of our Victorian Christmas countdown the twenty five Strangest Days of Christmas. Today we discuss the Victorian caroaler. Not the sweet high school choir in scarves, not your neighbor Sharon and her ukulele. No, I'm talking about the old school caroling gangs. Caroling was once a form of musical extortion. A group of singers would approach a house and sing loudly, intensely, relentlessly until the homeowner gave them food, ale, spare change, or whatever was in the pantry and not nailed down.

0:36 Speaker 1: If refused, the carrollers didn't just leave, Oh no, they switched to insult carols. Imagine trying to relax by the fire while outside your door a group of spirited tenors belts, good tidings we bring and your curtains are cheap. In eighteen twenty three, the town of Bath issued a caroling curfew because local singing groups were pounding doors with unruly harmony past midnight. But that's a Victorian Christmas. It was festive, it was melodic, it was mildly threatening.

1:07 Speaker 2: Today's episode is sponsored by Caroler begone, Indoor noise barrier curtains now with advanced tenor dampening technology. Kroler be gone, because sometimes the season of joy needs a volume knob.

1:22 Speaker 1: Tomorrow we pour another round of chaos. It's time for the paper chains and the Victorian craft night that could last days.