Here is a short festive quiz based on the lyrics of the top 30 carols on the carols.org.uk website. The challenge is to identify the carol from words that appear only in the lyrics of that carol and no other. So “merrily”, for example, only appears in one carol (clue: Ding Dong). It is just for fun – there is no prize other than a smug feeling and whatever you decide to reward yourself with!

I wrote a short program in R to read the main page, find the links to the carol pages, and then read each of those pages, and extract the lyrics. I split the lyrics into words, counted the number of times each appeared, and removed any used more than once. I then linked each word with its carol, as well as noting how far into the carol it appears. The words in the quiz all appear towards the beginning (mainly in the first verse) – I don’t expect many of us know the obscure later verses!

The carols used were the following…

The Quiz

Each of the following words appears only once in the lyrics of the above carols. For each word, identify the carol in which it appears. The answers can be found by hovering your mouse over the superscript number following each word, or by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Good luck!

1. Crisp ¹
2. Dashing ²
3. Moor ³
4. Shed ⁴
5. Dismay ⁵
6. Dread ⁶
7. Mercy ⁷
8. Dreamless ⁸
9. Calm ⁹
10. Sheep ¹⁰

1. Good King Wenceslas
2. Jingle Bells
3. We Three Kings
4. Once in Royal David’s City
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
6. While Shepherds Watched
7. Hark the Herald Angels Sing
8. O Little Town of Bethlehem
9. Silent Night
10. The First Noel