In the early 1600's Father Jean de Brebeuf came to Canada from his native France as a Jesuit missionary. He settled among the Huron, or Ouendat, people, learned their language and he wrote, in Huron, the original version of this famous Christmas carol. He and his fellow priests, called Black Robes, and many of their Huron parishioners were killed in an Iroquois raid in 1649. But Brebeuf's carol continued to be sung by successive generations of Hurons.