Jones was an early collector and recorder of Welsh folk music. This tune, with Jones's variations, was published as Nos Galen (sic) in his Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh Bards: preserved by tradition and authentic manuscripts, London 1784. This set of variations (omitting variation 3, but otherwise with minor alterations and errors) was copied by Jane Austen into a collection of keyboard music for her family's domestic use, entitled Juvenile songs and lessons [for young beginners who don't know enough to practise].

Jones implied that this tune had a pre-Christian origin amongst the Druids. More prosaically, it has in the twentieth century become associated with the secular Christ-tide carol "Deck the hall(s) with boughs of holly".