On the Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, probably in 1858, William Chatterton Dix was sick in bed. Dix was a devout churchman who ran a marine insurance company in England during the week and composed hymns on Sundays. While sick, he managed to read the Gospel for the day, which inspired him to write this classic Christmas hymn. It was set to a melody written several decades earlier by an eminent German organist, Conrad Kocher, but Dix is often credited with the tune. Dix eventually came to dislike his abridgment of the Kocher setting, but realized that since the combination of words and music had already entered the literature it was too late to change it.
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