"I Wonder As I Wander" - Hammered Dulcimer and Guitar - Steve and Ruth Smith

This rendition in a studio version of this Appalachian Christmas carol is on Steve and Ruth Smith's Winter/Christmas CD "An Appalachian Winter" available at www.steveandruth.com Steve and Ruth Smith are a duo from Western North Carolina near Boone who play a blend of Celtic Appalachian traditional and original music. "I Wonder as I Wander" had its origins in a song fragment collected on July 16, 1933 by folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles. While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, Niles met a girl, named Annie Morgan, who repeated a fragment of an old folk song seven times in exchange for a quarter, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea" for a wonderful Appalachian Christmas Carol.