Swaddling bands.

I have heard them called 'swaything bands' on a Carol recording.

This is just too much!
I like things and words to always stay the same!

"Swaddling" to rhyme with "waddling" surely?

I've never heard it pronounced any other way!

I would not pronounce this word to rhyme with "cradling" but language changes all the time, I suppose.

Interesting. Swaddling derives from the noun and verb swathe and appears in 17C poems rhymed (or arguably half-rhymed) with sable and saddle. 17C spelling also has it as swadling.

The text of the carol first appeared in 1700 and includes the term swathing bands:

All meanly wrapt in swathing bands
And in a manger laid

Perhaps a music scholar is attempting to relate the term back to how it might have been pronounced 300 years ago.

I’ve definitely sung the ‘swathing bands’ version.

Swathe has the advantage of being a much easier word to sing than swaddle, and they mean the same thing,

I've only ever sung swaddling to rhyme with waddling

Swathing makes sense, now I come to think of it.

Swathing bands as far as I can remember.

I can never remember if it's swathing bands or swaddling bands (as the two are just about interchangeable) but 'swadling' to rhyme with 'cradling' is just plain silly.

Technically, the probability is that a vowel followed by two consonants indicates a 'short' vowel sound. (And, 'a' after a 'w' is almost always said as 'o' as in 'orange') Note that MM removed a 'd' to help us understand the odd pronunciation more clearly. Start messing about with doubled consonants and English becomes even more difficult to learn to read and spell.

I feel very strongly about this as I taught phonics and studied in some depth.

Definitely not swadling bands - swaddling to rhyme with waddling, yes.

I've sung the 'swathing bands' version too and in fact that that seems to flow better than swaddling.

I’m for ‘swathing bands’.

Just listened to Carol's from Kings on the radio. Definitely swathing bands at Kings.

Yes definitely 'swathing bands ' Kings has to be correct.

In my childhood in Scotland you heard both pronunciations. Chambers Dictionary defines "swaddle" as "to swathe" and has "swathing bands" under "swathe" so that is probably how the confusion arose. I admit I have never seen a printed version of "While Shepherds watched2 that had 2swathing bands"

Likewise half of Scotland maintained (at least when hymn-singing) that "Christ was born in Isr -eye- el" while the rest sang "Is-ray-el"

You pays your money and you takes your choice! Or rather in the West of Scotland: youse pays your money and yous take your choice.

Sorry that 2 should have been "

for 2 read " in both instances. I can't type today, sorry.