The “Jingle Bells” lyric ends “in a one-horse open sleigh.”
James Lord Pierpont wrote the song, which was published in 1857 under the title “The One Horse Open Sleigh.” Its winter imagery—snow, bells, a bobtailed horse, and a light open vehicle—comes from nineteenth-century sleigh-riding culture. “Sleigh” is therefore both the canonical lyric and the title’s original vehicle.
Despite its modern Christmas identity, the song was not originally written specifically as a Christmas carol. It was first associated with sleighing and winter entertainment, and its Christmas connection strengthened during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The familiar chorus also changed slightly from the original published version.
Another frequent mix-up concerns the phrase “jingle bells.” Bells were attached to horse harnesses, partly because sleighs could move quietly over snow. The oldest surviving recording dates from 1898, while an earlier 1889 recording is believed to have been made but has not survived.