Vaughan Williams arranged these carols during World War 1 for the "choir" he developed among the men in his Field Ambulance unit. In 1917 they were stationed in Greece, near Katerini, on a hillside with Mount Olympus towering above. Ursula Vaughan Williams writes "Another experince, which no one who was there forgot, was carol singing on Christmas Eve: snow-capped Olympus, the clear night, the stars, and Ralph's choir singing carols of Hereford and Sussex with passionate nostaglia. The choir made that Christmas so far from home one that had a special quality, a special beauty, long remembered."