A L Lloyd in "Folk Song in England" says the text we have from the sixteenth Century was written down in a notebook kept by a grocer's apprentice. The notebook fell down behind a cupboard and was discovered in 186? when the house was being remodelled. Is that cool or what? We got favorite carols, shopping lists, girlfriend's addresses, and various notes on how to be a grocer -- from four hundred years ago. (Even weirder -- the apprentice ended up becoming Lord Mayor of London)