Lyrics
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
Our Savior Christ and His lady,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Our Savior Christ and His lady,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?
Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice, amain,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Then let us all rejoice, amain,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Public domain hymn text (17th century; first printed by William Sandys, 1833). Traditional English carol, author unknown.
The Story Behind the Hymn
'I Saw Three Ships' was first printed in the seventeenth century, with versions of the text appearing in English broadside collections, and the carol likely circulated in oral form for some time before that, as was typical of English Christmas carols of this period.
Its geography has long puzzled commentators, since Bethlehem is landlocked and nowhere near a coastline, making the image of ships sailing in on Christmas morning historically implausible as a literal description of the Nativity scene.
Various explanations have been proposed for the image, including that the 'ships' may represent the camels of the Magi as seen from a distance, or that the carol's writers, working in a country whose culture and trade were deeply shaped by seafaring, simply reached for the most vivid image of joyful arrival available to them, geographical accuracy aside.
Some versions of the carol substitute other subjects for the ships' cargo across different historical variants, including verses about the three ships carrying the skulls of the Biblical Magi, reflecting a once-popular medieval legend that their remains had been transported to Cologne Cathedral.
The most familiar surviving version, naming 'our Savior Christ and His lady' as the ships' cargo, focuses the carol simply on Christ's arrival alongside Mary, stripped of the more elaborate medieval relic legends found in some older variants. Its later verses build outward from that arrival, asking where the ships sailed and answering with Bethlehem, then widening into a full chorus of bells, angels, and rejoicing souls.
Its cheerful, dance-like melody and simple, repetitive structure, built around a single repeated question-and-answer pattern, made it well suited to communal singing and, in some English regions, actual carol dancing during the Christmas season.
Despite, or perhaps partly because of, its geographical oddity, the carol has remained one of the most recognizable English Christmas songs, valued for its bright tune and its long, layered history stretching back through centuries of English Christmas tradition.
