Bartók's Romanian Christmas Carols are based on folk melodies that originated in a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, and which he felt gave the impression of a fiery, war-like type of song, rather than a pious andreligious one. Nevertheless, he chose 20 melodies from this collection of colinde and published them under the title of Christmas Carols. In the first edition of 1918they were conceived for children_x001A_s hands and so were publishedwithout octaves - but in his revised edition