Is this wrong?

I didn't know that about Alnwick. I'll impress the S.O. with that in a couple of weeks when I'm oop there.

'Among' and 'amongst' are prepositions which have no plural forms.
They are interchangeable; 'among' is the earlier version (Old English) and 'amongst' came later (Middle English). I think it all depends on the following noun as to which sounds better, e.g. among the crowd, but amongst all the people, in other words whether there is a vowel or consonant following. 'Among' seems to be more widely used in the US with 'amongst' more popular in the UK.

After all that, I still agree that 'among the hay' sounds wrong!

Lllyflower - impressive! Wondering what he grew up to be!

Elegan - I love that song, not sure I ever knew what it was all about though!

'In the hay'. But it wouldn't scan. #poeticallicence

Maybe you don't have enough to think about Bellanonna!

Au contrarie, my friend.

Thanks iPad. Contraire

Why not just sing the words, enjoy the music, and the story which is being told? Not everything has to be perfect.

Violette - I am from Yorkshire so the words af the child sound perfectly ok to me !!

many carols/hymns were written in the 19th Century - they are meant to be sung joyfully not analysed by our grammer/language standards

I'm with Nelliemoser on this because when a lyric grates on the ear it spoils the message being sung.
Mind you, I'm so pedantic that I get annoyed every time I see the '10 items or less' sign at the checkouts. "10 items or FEWER", I rage to myself!

Upon the hay?
Would still scan and be unarguable, too.