Good King Wenceslas: the story behind the carol

It tells the story of Wenceslaus, a 10th-century Duke of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), who trudges through the snow with his page on the day after Christmas to bring food and firewood to a poor man. He wasn't really a king — he was made one after his death.

John Mason Neale wrote the words in 1853 to a spring song from a 1582 Finnish-Swedish songbook. Some critics have dismissed the words as doggerel; it became one of the best-loved carols anyway.