{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24065/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24065","id":"gutenberg_24065","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24065","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Children's Literature","Nursery rhymes -- History and criticism"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Stephen Blundell and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n A\n HISTORY\n OF\n NURSERY\n RHYMES\n\n\n BY\n PERCY B. GREEN\n\n\n\n LONDON\n GREENING & CO., LTD.\n 20, CECIL COURT\n CHARING CROSS ROAD\n 1899\n\n Now Reissued by\n Singing Tree Press\n 1249 Washington Blvd., Detroit, Michigan. 1968\n\n\n\n\nLibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-31082\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\n Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst\n significant amendments are noted at the end of the text.\n\n Archaic and dialect spellings remain as printed.\n\n Greek text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.\n\n The oe ligature is shown as [oe]. The + character has been used to\n represent the cross symbols used in Chapter IX.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n PAGE\n INTRODUCTION xiii\n\n\n PART I.\n\n CHAP.\n I. Prehistoric man--His language one of signs and sounds--The\n story of Psammetichus and the Two Babies--Idiom of\n language a survival of primitive peoples 1\n\n II. Modern types of early man--Sign-language of people living on\n the globe to-day--The custom of the UVINZA grandees--The\n \"good-morning\" of the Walunga tribe--Signs of\n hospitality in the sign vocabulary of the North American\n Indian--The \"attingere extremis digitis\" of the\n Romans--Clap-hands one of the first lessons of the\n Nursery--The modern survival of hand-clapping--\"Is it\n rude to shake hands, Nurse?\"--A hypercritical\n mother--Plato's rebuke--Agesilaus and his\n children--Nursery classics and critical babies--\"Lalla,\n lalla, lalla\" of the Roman child--The well-known baby\n dance of \"Crow and caper, caper and crow\" 8\n\n III. Writers on comparative religions show that entire religious\n observances come down to modern peoples from heathen\n sources--The Bohemian Peasant and his Apple Tree--A myth\n of long descent found in the rhyme of \"A Woman, a\n Spaniel, and Walnut Tree\"; our modern \"Pippin, pippin,\n fly away,\" indicates the same sentiment--The fairy tale\n of Ashputtel and the Golden Slipper, the legend from\n which came our story of Cinderella--Tylor on Children's\n Sports--The mystery of Northern Europe at Christ's\n coming--The Baby's Rattle--Ancestral worship follows sun\n and moon worship, and gives us the tales of fairies,\n goblins, and elves--Boyd Dawkins' story of the Isle of\n Man farmer--A Scandinavian Manxman--Modernised lullaby\n of a Polish mother--\"Shine, Stars\"--\"Rain, rain, go\n away\"--Wind making--LULLABIES--Bulgarian, German,\n \"Sleep, Baby, Sleep\"--The lullaby of the Black\n Guitar--\"Baby, go to Sleep\"--English version, \"Hush\n thee, my Babby\"--Danish lullaby of \"Sweetly sleep, my\n little Child\"--\"Bye, baby bunting\" 17\n\n IV. Elf-land--Old-time superstitions--A custom of providing a\n feast for the dead known in Yorkshire, North-west\n Ireland, and in Armenia--The Erl King of Goethe--Ballet\n of the Leaf-dressed Girl--The Spirit of the Waters--An\n Irish legend of Fior Usga--Scotch superstition--Jenny\n Greenteeth of Lancashire--The Merrow of the West of\n Ireland--Soul Cages--The German rhyme of \"O Man of the\n Sea, come list unto Me\"--Mysticism among uncivilised\n races--The Corn Spirit--The Rye-wolf--\"The Cow's in the\n Corn\"--\"Ring a ring a rosies\"--\"Cuckoo Cherry Tree\"--Our\n earliest song, \"Summer is a-coming in\"--\"Hot Cockles\" at\n Yorkshire funerals--\"Over the Cuckoo Hill, I\n oh!\"--Indian Lore 34\n\n\n PART II.\n\n I. GAMES--Whipping-tops, Marbles, etc.--\"I am good at Scourging\n of my Toppe,\" date 15--(?)--Dice and\n Pitch-and-Toss--\"Dab a Prin in my Lottery Book\"--\"A'\n the Birds of the Air\"--Hop Scotch--\"Zickety, dickety,\n dock\"--\"All good Children go to Heaven\"--\"Mary at the\n Cottage Door.\"\n\n MARRIAGE GAMES--\"If ever I Marry I'll Marry a Maid,\"\n 1557 A.D.--London Street Games--A Wedding--\"Choose one,\n choose two, choose the nearest one to you\"--\"Rosy\n Apple, Lemon, and Pear\"--The King of the\n Barbarines--\"I've got Gold and I've got Silver\"--A\n Lancashire Round Game--\"Fol th' riddle, I do, I do, I\n do\"--Round Game of the Mulberry Bush--\"Pray, Mr. Fox,\n what time is it?\"--\"Mother, buy me a Milking\n Can\"--\"Here comes a Poor Sailor from Botany Bay\"--\"Can\n I get there by Candle-light?\" 58\n\n II. NURSERY GAMES--A Game for a Wet Day--\"Cows and Horses walk\n on four legs\"--A Game nearly 300 years old--\"There were\n two birds sitting on a stone\"--A B C Game--\"Hi diddle\n diddle\"--\"I Apprentice my Son\"--An Armenian Child's\n Game, \"Jack's Alive\"--Russian Superstition 80\n\n III. JEWISH RHYMES--\"A kid, a kid my father bought for two\n pieces of money--a kid! a kid!\"--\"The house that Jack\n built\"--The Scotch version, \"There was an old woman\n swept her house and found a silver penny\"--The Chad\n Gady\u00e2--\"Who knoweth One\" 89\n\n IV. An ancient English Rhyme--\"A Frog who would a-wooing go,\"\n the version of same sung in Henry VIII.'s reign--Songs\n of London Boys in Tudor times--\"Quoth John to\n Joan\"--\"Good parents in good manners do instruct their\n child\"--\"Tom a Lin\"--\"Bryan O'Lynn\"--Four songs sung by\n children in Elizabeth's reign--\"We'll have a Wedding at\n our House\" 100\n\n V. CAT RHYMES--\"Pussy-cat, pussy-cat\"--\"Ten little mice sat down\n to spin\"--\"The rose is red, the grass is green\"--\"I Love\n little Pussy\"--\"Three Cats sat by the Fireside\"--\"There\n was a Crooked Man\"--\"Ding dong bell\"--Cat tale of Dick\n Whittington 112\n\n VI. A Cradle Song of the first century, \"Sleep, O son, sleep\" 117\n\n VII. JACK RHYMES 123\n\n VIII. RIDDLE MAKING--German riddle of \"Seven White and Seven\n Black Horses\"--Greek riddle of the Two Sisters; another\n of \"The year, months, and days\"--\"Old Mother\n Needle\"--\"Purple, yellow, red, and green\"--\"As round as\n an Apple\"--\"Humpty Dumpty\"--The Ph[oe]nix\n fable--\"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home\" 127\n\n IX. NURSERY CHARMS--\"When a twister twisting twists him a\n twist\"--An Essex Charm for a Churn--\"Matthew, Mark,\n Luke, and John\" Charms.\n\n MONEY RHYMES--\"How a lass gave her lover three slips\n for a tester\"--\"Little Mary Esther\"--\"Sing a Song of\n Sixpence\"--\"There was an old man in a velvet\n coat\"--\"See-saw\"--\"One a penny\"--\"There's never a\n maiden in all the town\"--\"Pinky, pinky,\n bow-bell\"--Numerical Nursery Rhyme--Baker's Man 134\n\n X. SCRAPS--\"Oh, slumber, my darling, thy sire is a\n knight\"--\"Bye, baby bumpkin\"--\"Nose, nose, jolly red\n nose\"--\"I saw a man in the moon\"--A Henry VIII.\n Rhyme--\"Peg-Peg\"--\"Round about\"--\"Father\n Long-legs\"--\"Two-penny rice\"--\"Come when you're\n called\"--A Game--\"Nanny Natty Coat\"--\"As I was going\n down Sandy Lane\"--\"There was an old woman\"--\"Robert\n Rowley\"--\"Little General Monk\"--\"Dr. Tom Tit\"--\"Tommy\n Trot\"--\"Goosey Gander\"--\"The White Dove sat on the\n Castell Wall\"--\"This Little Pig\"--\"Little Bo\n Peep\"--\"See-saw, Margery Daw\"--\"Four-and-twenty\n Tailors\"--\"Little Moppet\"--\"Hub-a-dub, dub\"--\"Diddle\n Dumpling\"--\"Jack and Jyll\"--\"The Cat and the\n Fiddle\"--\"Baa! baa! black sheep\"--\"Here comes a poor\n Duke out of Spain\"--\"Ride to the\n market\"--\"Cross-patch\"--\"The Man of the South\"--A\n Lancashire Fragment--\"Dickery dock\"--\"There was an old\n woman toss'd up in a blanket\"--\"We're all in the\n dumps\"--A Proverb--A Compliment--The Reverse 141\n\n XI. SONGS--\"Will the love that you're so rich\n in?\"--\"Cock-a-doodle doo\"--\"King Cole\"--\"Rowsty\n dowt\"--\"There was a Little Man\"--The Creole's\n Song--\"Dapple Grey\"--\"Blue Betty\"--\"Tom, Tom, the\n Piper's Son\"--\"Oh dear, what can the matter\n be?\"--\"Simple Simon\"--\"I saw a Ship a-sailing\"--\"David\n the Welshman\"--\"My Father he Died\" 152\n\n XII. SCOTCH RHYMES--\"As I went up the Brandy Hill\"--Scotch\n version of Bryan O'Lynn--\"Cripple Dick\"--\"Pan, Pan,\n Play\"--\"Gi'e a thing\"--A Gruesome Riddle--\"King and\n Queen of Cantelon\"--Hidee--\"Wha's your Daddie?\"--\"The\n Moon is a Lady\" 162\n\n XIII. A favourite Nursery Hymn--The Latin version of the\n Virgin's Lullaby 169\n\n XIV. \"There was a maid came out of Kent\"--\"Martin Smart\"--\"Great\n A, little B\"--A Nursery Tale--\"A duck, a drake\"--\"Hark!\n Hark!\"--A B C Jingles--A Catch Rhyme 173\n\n XV. BELL RHYMES--\"Banbury Cross\"--\"Gay go up, and gay go\n down\"--\"Mary, Mary, quite contrary\"--The Proven\u00e7al\n \"Ding-dong\" 178\n\n XVI. Political Significations of Nursery Rhymes--\"Come,\n Jack\"--\"A man of words\"--Pastorini, Lord Grey,\n Lyttleton, Dan O'Connell, and Lord Brougham caricatured 185\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nWithout advancing any theory touching the progression of the mother's\nsong to her babe, other than declaring lullabies to be about as old as\nbabies, a statement which recalls to mind an old story, entitled \"The\nOwl's Advice to an Inquisitive Cat.\"\n\n\"O cat,\" said the sage owl of the legend, \"to pass life agreeably most\nof all you need a philosophy; you and I indeed enjoy many things in\ncommon, especially night air and mice, yet you sadly need a philosophy\nto search after, and think about matters most difficult to discover.\"\nAfter saying this the owl ruffled his feathers and pretended to think.\n\nBut the cat observed that it was foolish to search after such things.\n\"Indeed,\" she purringly said, \"I only trouble about easy matters.\"\n\n\"Ah! I will give you an example of my philosophy, and how inquiry ought\nto be made. You at least know, I presume,\" scoffingly exclaimed the owl,\n\"that the chicken arises from the egg, and the egg comes from the hen.\nNow the object of true philosophy is to examine this statement in all\nits bearings, and consider which was first, the egg or the bird.\"\n\nThe cat was quite struck with the proposition.\n\n\"It is quite clear,\" went on the owl, \"to all but the ignorant, one or\nother appeared first, since neither is immortal.\"\n\nThe cat inquired, \"Do you find out this thing by philosophy?\"\n\n\"Really! how absurd of you to ask,\" concluded the feathered one. \"And I\nthank the gods for it, were it as you suggest, O cat, philosophy would\ngive no delight to inquirers, for knowing all things would mean the end\nand destruction of philosophy.\"\n\nWith this owl's apology nursery-lore is presented to my readers without\nthe legion of verified references of that character demanded as\ncorroborative evidence in the schools of criticism to-day.\n\nA few leading thoughts culled from such men as Tylor, Lubbock, Wilson,\nMcLennan, Frazer, and Boyd Dawkins, etc., the experiences of our modern\ntravellers among primitive races, Indian and European folk-lore, the\nworld's credulities past and present, have helped me to fix the idea\nthat amongst the true historians of mankind the children of our streets\nfind a place.\n\n\n\n\n A HISTORY\n OF\n NURSERY RHYMES\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n \"The scene was savage, but the scene was new.\"\n\n\nScientists tell us many marvellous tales, none the less true because\nmarvellous, about the prehistoric past. Like the owl in the preface,\nthey are not discouraged because the starting-point is beyond reach; and\nwe, like the cat, should try to awaken our interest when evidences are\npresented to us that on first hearing sound like the wonderful tales of\nthe Orient.\n\nThousands of years ago in our own land dwelt two races of people, the\nRiver Drift-men and the Cave-dwellers. The River Drift-man was a hunter\nof a very low order, possessing only the limited intelligence of the\nmodern Australian native. This man supported life much in the same way\nwe should expect a man to do, surrounded by similar conditions; but, on\nthe other hand, the Cave-dweller showed a singular talent for\nrepresenting the animals he hunted, and his sketches reveal to us the\ncapacity he had for seeing the beauty and grace of natural objects. Were\na visit to be paid to the British Museum, his handicraft, rude when\ncompared to modern art, could be seen in the fragments beyond all cavil\nrecording his primitive culture.\n\nWithout, then, any very great stretch of imagination we can picture to\nourselves this man as belonging to one of the most primitive types of\nour race, having little occasion to use a vocabulary--save of a most\nmeagre order; and indeed his language would embody only a supply of\nwords just expressive of his few simple wants. Without daring to compare\nprimitive culture with modern advancement, this prototype's appetites\nwould have been possibly served for the greater part by sign-language,\nand the use of a few easy protophones. To-day, after the lapse of ages\nsince this Second Stone Age, man went up and possessed the land; we with\nour new inventions, wants, and newly-acquired tastes have added a legion\nof scientifically constructed sounds, built up on the foundation he laid\nwith his first utterances, for language is not the outcome of race, but\nof social contact. As an interpolation the tale of the Egyptian\nPsammetichus is worth telling at this stage.\n\nDesirous of finding--as the ancients then thought existed--the original\nlanguage of mankind, Psammetichus isolated two babies from birth in\nseparate apartments, and for two years they were not allowed to hear the\nsound of a human voice. At the end of that time they were brought\ntogether and kept for a few hours without food. Psammetichus then\nentered the room, and both children uttered the same strange cry,\n\"Becos, Becos.\" \"Ah!\" said Psammetichus, \"'Becos, Becos,' why! that is\nPhrygian for bread,\" and Phrygian was said to have been the ancient\nuniversal language of man. Still, however one feels disposed to imagine\nwhat took place in the Baby Kingdom of these remote ages, brief\nallusions only will be made to the veiled past, when either\nsign-language, or relics, or myths of long descent are presented to us\nin the form of nursery-lore.\n\nHow many thousands of years have gone by since the period known to\nscientists as the Pleistocene was here--a time when the whole of Britain\nand North-West Europe wore a glistening mantle of ice, and when man\ncould scarce exist, save on the fringe of the south-east littoral of\nEngland--none can say. At all events it may be safely assumed that not\ntill the end of the Pleistocene Era was Britain or Scandinavia the abode\nof man, when the fauna and flora assumed approximately their present\ncondition, and the state of things called Recent by geologists set in.\n\nWhether the Aryans be accepted as the first people to inhabit our\nice-bound shores in the remote past matters little, and from whence they\nsprang (according to Max M\u00fcller \"somewhere in Asia,\" or Dr. Schrader\n\"European Russia,\" or Herr Penka \"from the east to the far west of the\nScandinavian Peninsula\") matters still less, \"for,\" says Professor\nHuxley, \"the speakers of primitive Aryan may have been (themselves) a\nmixture of two or more races, just as are the speakers of English or of\nFrench at the present time\"; and arch\u00e6ology takes us no further back\nthan into the Neolithic or Second Stone Age, when the poetry of the\nhuman voice gave a dramatic value to the hitherto primitive\nsign-language limitation of the Old Drift-men. At this age, the\nNeolithic, arithmetical questions arising in the course of life would\nnecessarily assume a vocal value instead of a digital one. No longer\nwould fifteen be counted by holding out ten fingers and five toes, but\nan idiomatic phrase, descriptive of the former sign-language, \"_of two\nhands and one foot's worth_\" would be used, just as to-day an African\nwould express the same problem in a number of cows, and as the\ncomparatively modern Roman used such pictorial phrases as \"_to condemn\na person of his head_.\" From this era, centuries before the Celt\ntraversed our shores, \"the progress of civilisation\" has gone on in one\nunbroken continuity from the Second Stone Age man to the present time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n \"O dea, si prima repetens ab origine pergam et vacet annales\n nostrorum audire laborum. Ante diem clauso componat Vesper\n Olympo.\"--VERGIL, _\u00c6neid_, Book I. 372.\n\n \"O goddess, if I were to proceed retracing them from their first\n origin, and thou hadst leisure to hear the records of our labours\n before (the end), the Evening Star would lull the day to rest,\n Olympus being closed.\"\n\n\nHowever, granting the scientific imagination to assume a starting-point\nwhen the vast Ice Period was vanishing and language was not the test of\nrace, but of social contact, it must be allowed that the River Drift-man\nwas the first of his species that touched our shores, followed by the\nCave-dwellers some thousands of years later; the latter man having his\nabode fixed to a locality, and his wanderings within prescribed limits.\n\nHe may have, this prehistoric man, this Cave-dweller, chattered like a\nmonkey in a patois understood only by his own family; but what is more\nreasonable to suppose than that the Drift-men of the marshes and\ncoastlines had only a restricted use for vocal sounds, sign-language\nbeing expressive enough to meet their few wants? Meagre social\nconditions, peculiar isolation, savagery, strife for life, call for no\ncomplex language, but sign-language has the authority of people living\non the globe to-day, not only amongst uncivilised races, but traces are\nseen in our very midst.\n\nThe few examples of custom and signs given below will better illustrate\nthe force of the statement.\n\n\"Amongst the Uvinza, when two grandees meet, the junior leans forward,\nbends his knees, and places the palms of his hands on the ground, one on\neither side his feet, while the senior claps hands over him six or\nseven times.\"\n\nIn the morning among the Walunga all the villagers turn out, and a\ncontinuous clapping is kept up to the vocalisation of a shrill\n\"Kwi-tata?\" or \"How do you do?\"\n\nTwo special signs for \"good\" are in the sign-vocabulary of the North\nAmerican Indians, and are worth recording. The person greeting holds the\nright hand, back up, in front of and close to the heart, with the\nfingers extended and pointing to the left. Another habit is that of\npassing the open right hand, palm downwards, from the heart, towards the\nperson greeted. A stranger making his appearance on the frontier line of\nan Indian camp seldom fails to recognise the true sentiment of the\nchief's salutation, the extended fingers on the left side meaning--\n\n\"You are near my heart--expect no treachery,\" a most solemn surety;\nwhile the hand sent from the heart towards the visitor seems to say--\n\n\"I extend hospitality to you.\"\n\nThe \"attingere extremis digitis\" of the Romans expressed the same\ntemperate conduct.\n\nBut greeting by gesture and hand-clapping still live, and are discovered\nin the first lessons given by a mother to her babe.\n\n \"Clap hands, papa comes,\"\n\nand\n\n \"Pat a cake, pat a cake, my little man,\n Yes, I will, mother, as fast as I can\"\n\nhave a universal significance in Child Land. Unfortunately this survival\nof hand-clapping, a vestige of a habit belonging to primitive people,\ndoes not begin and end in our modern nursery.\n\n\"When I was a child I spake as a child, but when I became a man I put\naway childish things,\" is a resolve daily forgotten.\n\nIn the theatre, when our sentiment is awakened by the craft of the stage\nplayer, we show approbation by a round of hand-clapping not one whit\nless savage than the habit of the Uvinza grandee or the good-morning\namong the Walunga tribe.\n\n \"O wad some Power the giftie gie us\n To see oursels as others see us!\"\n\nThis demonstration of feeling may have more _corps d'esprit_ than the\nfeeble \"hear, hear\" of the educated or self-restrained man, but\nsign-language, especially among the Anglo-Saxon race, is on the wane.\nIts exodus is slowly going on, lingering anon in the ritual of\nreligions, yet in social life ever being expelled.\n\n\"It is rude to point,\" says the nursemaid to her little charge.\n\n\"Is it rude to shake hands, nurse?\" once exclaimed a child cynic. The\nnurse was nonplussed. The middle-class mother answers the child's\nquestion--\n\n\"Yes, dear--with anyone in a lower position.\"\n\n\"That's a case,\" said an Irishman on hearing it, \"of twopence-halfpenny\nlooking down on twopence,\" or by another comparison, it is a case of one\nEnglish grandee clapping his hands over another grandee's head. Still,\nthough educational influences and nine-tenths of the coterie of society\nwage war against sign-language, ill-mannered men and badly-behaved\nchildren must always be with us.\n\n\"'Tis rude to laugh\" is another precept of the hypercritical mother.\nWhy? Goodness only knows!--for none but a pompous blockhead or a solemn\nprig will pretend that he never relaxes. But let ancient Plato, brimful\nas he was of philosophy, answer the question \"When not to laugh?\"\n\nIndulging one day in idle waggery, Plato, on seeing a staid disciple\napproach, suddenly exclaimed to his fellows, \"Let's be wise now, for I\nsee a fool coming,\" and under hypocrisy's mask all merriment ceased.\n\nAgesilaus in mere sport romped with his children, and delighted them by\nriding on a stick round the nursery, possibly singing, after the manner\nof many a modern rollicking nursery-loving father--\n\n \"Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross.\"\n\nWith men, however, kingly proclamations, laws, empires pass away and are\nforgotten, time obliterates their memories, but in Child Land all the\ninhabitants, from the tiniest crower to the ten-year-old boy, show an\neager appreciation in the conservation of the pleasing lore contained in\nthe lullabies, the jingles, the tales, the riddles, the proverbs, and\nthe games of the nursery classics.\n\nAnd what terrible critics these babies are! What a perverse preference\nthey have for the soft jingle of nonsensical melody; blank verse with\nits five accents and want of rhythm does not soothe: they must have\nthe--\n\n \"Lalla, lalla, lalla,\n Aut dormi, aut lacta\"\n\nof their prototype of Roman days.\n\nHow they revel and delight in the mother's measured song of--\n\n \"Dance, little baby, dance up high,\n Never mind, baby, mother is nigh;\n Crow and caper, caper and crow,\n There, little baby, there you go.\n Up to the ceiling, down to the ground,\n Backwards and forwards, round and round;\n So dance, little baby, and mother will sing,\n With a high cockolorum and tingle, ting ting.\"\n\nOr--\n\n \"With a merry, gay coral, and tingle, ting ting.\"[A]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] First printed in a selection of nursery rhymes by Taylor, 1828. A\nmodern well-known baby dance.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n \"The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve!\n Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand.\"\n\n\nThe Norwegian explorer, Dr. Nansen, in his address to the Royal\nGeographical Society on February 9th, 1897, stated:--\n\n\"The long Arctic day was beautiful in itself, though one soon got tired\nof it. But when that day vanished and the long Polar night began, then\nbegan the kingdom of beauty, then they had the moon sailing through the\npeculiar silence of night and day. The light of the moon shining when\nall was marble had a most singular effect.\"[B]\n\nWriters on Comparative Religions for the most part assert that moon\nworship amongst the almost utterly savage tribes in Africa and America,\nthe hunting, nomad races of to-day, is a noteworthy feature. \"It is not\nthe sun that first attracted the attention of the savage.\"[C] \"In order\nof birth the worship of the night sky, inclusive of that of the moon,\nprecedes that of the day sky and the sun. It was observed long ago that\nwherever sun worship existed moon worship was to be found, being a\nresiduum of an earlier state of religion.\"[D]\n\nWhat the early primal melody of thousands of years ago may have been one\ncan hardly suggest, but that the subject-matter of the song was mythical\nthere can be very little doubt, and, like folk-lore tales, built upon\nand around nature worship; for as the capacity for creating language\ndoes not exhaust all its force at once, but still continues to form new\nmodes of speech whenever an alteration of circumstances demands them, so\nit is with myths. The moon during a long Polar night reigning in a\nkingdom of crystalline beauty, when all around is silence and grandeur,\nwould suggest to the dweller on the fringe of the ice fields--his deity.\nThe sun, in like manner shedding forth its genial warmth, the\nagriculturist would learn to welcome, and to ascribe to its power the\nincrease of his crop, and just as the limitation of reason holds the\nuntutored man in bondage, so the myth, the outcome of his ignorance,\nbecomes his god.\n\nEven though social advancement has made rapid strides among\ncomparatively modern peoples and nations, not only traces of\nmythological, but entire religious observances, reclothed in Christian\ncostumes, are still kept up. Praying to an apple tree to yield an\nabundant crop was the habit of the Bohemian peasant, until Christian\nteaching influenced him for the better; yet such a hold had the\ntradition of his ancestors over him that the custom still survives, and\nyearly on Good Friday before sunrise he enters his garden, and there on\nhis knees says--\n\n \"I pray, O green tree, that God may make thee good.\"\n\nThe old form ran thus--\n\n \"I pray thee, O green tree, that thou yield abundantly.\"\n\nIn some districts the lash of the Bohemian peasant's whip is well\napplied to the bark of the tree, reminding one of the terse verse--\n\n \"A woman, a spaniel, and walnut tree,\n The more you beat them the better they be.\"\n\nThere is also something akin, in this Bohemian's former sentiment, to\nthe wish our nursery children make while eating apples. Coming to the\ncores they take out the pippins and throw them over the left shoulder,\nexclaiming--\n\n \"Pippin, pippin, fly away;\n Bring me an apple another day.\"\n\nSurely a tree hidden within its fruit.\n\nIn the German fairy tale of Ashputtel, also known as the golden\nslipper--a similar legend is extant amongst the Welsh people--and from\nwhich our modern tale of Cinderella and her glass slipper came, a tree\nfigured as the mysterious power. After suffering many disappointments\nAshputtel, so the legend relates, goes to a hazel tree and complains\nthat she has no clothes in which to go to the great feast of the king.\n\n \"Shake, shake, hazel tree,\n Gold and silver over me,\"\n\nshe exclaims, and her friends the birds weave garments for her while the\ntree makes her resplendent with jewels of gold and silver.\n\n\"Children's sport, popular sayings, absurd customs, may be practically\nunimportant, but they are not philosophically insignificant, bearing as\nthey do on primitive culture.\"[E] Trans-Alpine Europe was a greater\nmystery to the nations on the littoral of the Mediterranean at the time\nof Christ's appearance in Syria than any spot in Central Africa is to us\nto-day.\n\nAcross the Northern mountain chains were regions unaffected by Greek or\nRoman culture, and the only light shed on the memorials of Northern\nEurope's early youth comes from the contributory and dimly illuminative\nrays of folk-lore.\n\n\nTHE BABY'S RATTLE\n\nat this juncture is worth according a passing notice, though degenerated\ninto the bauble it now is.\n\nAmong the Siberian, Brazilian, and Redskin tribes it was held as a\nsacred and mysterious weapon. This sceptre of power of the modern\nnursery--the token primitive man used, and on which the Congo negro\ntakes his oath--has lost its significance.\n\nThe Red Indian of North America had his Rattle man, who, as physician,\nused it as a universal prescription in the cure of all disease,\nbelieving, no doubt, that its jargon would allay pain, in like manner as\nit attracts and soothes a cross child; and this modern type of primitive\nman, the Red Indian, although fast dying out, has no obscured visions of\nthe records of childhood; they have remained since his _anno mundi_ ran\nback to zero. To him the great sources of religious and moral suasion\nwhich gave birth to medi\u00e6val and modern Europe, and so largely\ncontributed to the polity of Asia and the upraising of Africa, have been\na dead letter, which spell his extinction. He lived up to his racial\ntraditions, and is fast dying with them. His language, his arts, his\nreligious rites are of an unfamiliar past.\n\nLeaving the Red Indian moon worshipper with his death rattle awhile and\nharking back to Europe, Norway stands out as the richest country in\nlegendary lore, for old-time superstitions have lingered among the\nsimple and credulous people, living pent up on the horrid crags, where\ntorrents leap from cliff to valley. Their tales of goblins and spirits,\ntales of trolls, gnomes, and a legendary host of other uncanny\ncreatures, point to the former nature and ancestral worship of a people\ncut off from the advancing civilisation of their time. Luckily for the\narch\u00e6ologist, superstitious beliefs and folk-lore tales have preserved\nthe graves of the Stone Age inhabitants of the country from desecration.\nAs in Norway so in the Isle of Man, and in the western districts of\nIreland.\n\nIn Man until the fifties many of the inhabitants believed in the Spirit\nof the Mountains; indeed, even in County Donegal and the West Riding of\nYorkshire, up to the last twenty years, fairy superstition was rife.\nBoyd Dawkins gives in his chapter, \"Superstition of the Stone Age: Early\nMan in Britain,\" an account of an Isle of Man farmer who, having allowed\ninvestigation to be made in the interests of science on portions of his\nlands, becoming so awed at the thought of having sanctioned the\ndisturbing of the dead, that he actually offered up a heifer as a burnt\nsacrifice to avert the wrath of the Manes. After lunar and solar\nworships this ancestral worship of the Isle of Man farmer ranks next in\npoint of age, a survival of which is seen in the respect paid by country\npeople to the fairies, the goblins, and the elves. Equally so has the\nspirit of former beliefs been handed down to us in the song of the\nnurse, and in the practices of rural people.\n\nA modernised lullaby of a Polish mother bears traces in the last stanza\nof a quasi-native worship--\n\n \"Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high,\n Proclaimers of His power and might,\n May all things evil from us fly;\n O stars, good-night, good-night!\"\n\nOther instances of nature worshippers are amusing as well as being\ninstructive. The Ojebway Indians believe in the mortality of the sun,\nfor when an eclipse takes place the whole tribe, in the hope of\nrekindling the obscured light, keep up a continual discharge of\nfire-tipped arrows from their bows until they perceive again his majesty\nof light. Amongst the New Caledonians the wizard, if the season continue\nto be wet and cloudy, ascends the highest accessible peak on a\nmountain-range and fires a peculiar sacrifice, invoking his ancestors,\nand exclaiming--\n\n \"Sun, this I do that you may be burning hot,\n And eat up all the black clouds of the sky,\"\n\nreminding one of the puerile cry of the weather-bound nursery child--\n\n \"Rain, rain, go away,\n Come again another day.\"\n\nWind-making among primitive people was universally adopted; even at a\nlate period the cultured Greeks and Romans believed in a mythical wind\ngod.\n\nIt was the custom of the wind clan of the Omahas to flap their overalls\nto start a breeze, while a sorcerer of New Britain desirous of appeasing\nthe wind god throws burnt lime into the air, and towards the point of\nthe compass he wishes to make a prosperous journey, chanting meanwhile a\nsong. Finnish wizards made a pretence of selling wind to land-bound\nsailors. A Norwegian witch once boasted of sinking a vessel by opening a\nwind-bag she possessed. Homer speaks of Ulysses receiving the winds as a\npresent from \u00c6olus, the King of Winds, in a leather bag.\n\nIn the highlands of Ethiopia no storm-driven wind ever sweeps down\nwithout being stabbed at by a native to wound the evil spirit riding on\nthe blast. In some parts of Austria a heavy gale is propitiated by the\nact and speech of a peasant who, as the demon wings his flight in the\nraging storm, opens the window and casts a handful of meal or chaff to\nthe enraged sprite as a peace offering, at the same time shouting--\n\n \"There, that's for you; stop, stop!\"\n\nA pretty romance is known in Bulgarian folk-lore. The wife of a peasant\nwho had been mysteriously enticed away by the fairies was appealed to by\nher husband's mother to return.\n\n \"Who is to feed the babe, and rock its cradle?\"\n\nsang the grandmother, and the wind wafted back the reply--\n\n \"If it cry for food, I will feed it with copious dews;\n If it wish to sleep, I will rock its cradle with a gentle breeze.\"\n\nHow devoid of all sentiment our Englished version of the same tale\nreads.\n\n \"Hush-a-bye, baby, on a tree top,\n When the wind blows the cradle will rock,\n When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,\n Down comes the baby and cradle and all.\"\n\nNo wonder this purposeless lullaby is satirised in the orthodox libretto\nof Punch's Opera or the Dominion of Fancy, for Punch, having sung it,\nthrows the child out of the window.\n\nThe poetic instinct of the German mother is rich in expression, her\nvoice soothing and magnetic as she sways her babe to and fro to the\nmelody of--\n\n \"Sleep, baby, sleep!\n Thy father tends the sheep,\n Thy mother shakes the branches small,\n Whence happy dreams in showers fall.\n Sleep, baby, sleep!\n\n \"Sleep, baby, sleep!\n The sky is full of sheep,\n The stars the lambs of heaven are,\n For whom the shepherd moon doth care.\n Sleep, baby, sleep!\"[F]\n\nThe lullaby of the Black Guitar, told by the Grimm brothers in their\nGerman fairy tales, gives us the same thought.\n\n \"Thou art sleeping, my son, and at ease,\n Lulled by the whisperings of the trees.\"\n\nAnother German nurse song of a playful yet commanding tone translates--\n\n \"Baby, go to sleep!\n Mother has two little sheep,\n One is black and one is white;\n If you do not sleep to-night,\n First the black and then the white\n Shall give your little toe a bite.\"\n\nA North Holland version has degenerated into the flabby Dutch of--\n\n \"Sleep, baby, sleep!\n Outside there stands a sheep\n With four white feet,\n That drinks its milk so sweet.\n Sleep, baby, sleep!\"\n\nThe old English cradle rhyme, evidently written to comfort fathers more\nthan babies, is given by way of contrast, and, as is usual with our own\ncountrymen, the versification is thoroughly British, slurred over and\nslovenly--\n\n \"Hush thee, my babby,\n Lie still with thy daddy,\n Thy mammy has gone to the mill\n To grind thee some wheat\n To make thee some meat,\n Oh, my dear babby, do lie still!\"\n\nThe Danish lullaby of\n\n \"Sweetly sleep, my little child,\n Lie quiet and still.\n The bird nests in the wood,\n The flower rests in the meadow grass;\n Sweetly sleep, my little child.\"\n\nThis last recalls the esteem our Teuton ancestors had for their scalds,\nor polishers of language, when poetry and music were linked together by\nthe voice and harp of minstrelsy, and when the divine right to fill the\noffice of bard meant the divine faculty to invent a few heroic stanzas\nto meet a dramatic occasion.\n\nOne more well-known British lullaby--\n\n \"Bye, baby bunting,\n Daddy's gone a-hunting\n To get a little _hare skin_\n To wrap the baby bunting in.\"\n\nThe more modern version gives \"_rabbit skin_.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[B] _Times'_ report, February 10th, 1897.\n\n[C] F. SPIEGEL.\n\n[D] WELCKER, _Griechische G\u00f6tterlehre_, i. 551.\n\n[E] TYLOR.\n\n[F] Wagner introduced the music to which it is sung in his _Siegfried_\nidyll.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n \"One very dark night, when the goblins' light\n Was as long and as white as a feather,\n A fairy spirit bade me stray\n Amongst the gorse and heather.\n The pixies' glee enamoured me,\n They were as merry as merry could be.\n\n \"They held in each hand a gold rope of sand,\n To every blue-bell that grew in the dell\n They tied a strand,\n Then the fairies and pixies and goblins and elves\n Danced to the music of the bells\n By themselves, merry, merry little selves.\"\n\n\nTo the kingdom of elf-land few English nursery poems have any reference.\nOur continental neighbours have preserved a few, but the major number\nare found in versions of the folk-lore tales belonging to the people\ndwelling in the hilly districts of remote parts of Europe. Norway,\nSwitzerland, Italy, and even Poland present weird romances, and our own\ncountry folk in the \"merrie north country,\" and in the lowlands of\n\"bonnie Scotland,\" add to the collection. The age to which most of them\nmay be traced is uncertain; at all events, they bear evidences of\nbelonging to a period when nature worship was universal, and the\nveneration of the mysterious in life common to our ancestors. The Second\nStone Age men, it is said, cremated their dead who were worthy of\nreverence, and worshipped their shades, and the nursery tales of pixies\nand goblins and elves are but the mythical remains of their once\nprevailing religion--universal the world over. The inception of this\nancestral worship probably took place during that period known as the\nNeolithic Age, when the moon, stars, and sun no longer remained the\nmysterious in life to be feared and worshipped. In the dreary process of\nevolution a gradual development took place, and nature worship and\nancestral veneration evolved into the more comprehensive systems of\nBuddha, Confucius, and the later polytheism of Greece, Ancient Tuscany,\nand Rome, leaving high and dry, stranded, as it were, in Northern\nEurope, Ireland, and North Britain, an undisturbed residuum of\nante-chronological man's superstitions. Evidences of primitive man's\nreligion are seen in the customs and practices of our rural folk to-day.\n\nIn vast forest districts, or in hilly regions far away from the refining\ninfluences of social contact, the old-time superstitions lingered,\nchanging little in the theme, and inspiring the succeeding generations,\nas they unfolded in the long roll-call of life, with the same fears of\nthe mystery of death and of a future life. One of the customs of recent\npractice is fitly described as follows:--\n\nIn Yorkshire and in north-west Irish homesteads, and even far away in\nthe East amongst the Armenian peasantry, a custom was, until late years,\nin vogue, of providing a feast for the departed relatives on certain\nfixed dates. All Hallows' Eve being one of the occasions a meal was\nprepared, and the feast spread as though ordinary living visitants were\ngoing to sit round the \"gay and festive board.\" The chain hanging down\nfrom the centre of the chimney to the fireplace was removed--a boundary\nline of the domestic home--but at these times especial care was taken to\nremove it so that the \"pixies and goblins and elves\" could have a\nlicence to enter the house. In spite of Christian teaching and other\nwidening influences the belief remained fixed in the minds of the rural\nclasses that elves, goblins, sprites, pixies, and the manes were stern\nrealities.\n\nThe Erl King of Goethe, a sprite endowed with more than human passions,\nelegantly portrays the modern idea of an old theme. How he haunted the\nregions of the Black Forest in Thuringia, snatching up children rambling\nin the shades of the leafed wood, to kill them in his terrible shambles.\nThe King of the Wood and the Spirit of the Waters were both early among\nthe terrors of old-time European peasantry's superstitions.\n\nAnother surviving custom, carried out with much picturesque ceremony, is\ncommon to the peoples of the Balkan States. In time of water-famine,\nmore particularly in Servia, the girls go through the neighbouring\nvillages singing a Dodolo song of--\n\n \"We go through the village,\n The clouds go in the sky;\n We go faster,\n Faster go the clouds;\n They have overtaken us,\n And wetted the corn and wine.\"\n\nPrecisely as the hawthorn bushes were stripped of their blossoms by\nMaying parties in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so\nin Servia the ballet of the leaf-dressed girl, encircled by a party of\nholiday-makers, proceeds through the hamlets invoking not the Fair\nFlora, but the Spirit of the Waters; the central figure, the girl in\ngreen, being besprinkled by each cottager.\n\nThe Greeks, Bulgarians, and Roumanians observe a similar ceremony, but\non the confines of Russia so intense is the belief in the superstition\nof the water goblin that in times of long drought a traveller\njourneying along the road has often been seized by the ruthless hands of\nthe villagers and ceremoniously flung into a rivulet--a sacrifice to\nappease the spirit that lay in the waters. In Ireland the fairy-tale of\nFior Usga--Princess Spring-water--has a kindred meaning; she, so the\nlegend relates, sank down in a well with her golden pitcher, and the\nflood-gates opened and swamped the parched and barren countryside near\nKinsale.\n\nIn Germany, when a person is drowned, people recollect the fancies of\nchildhood, and exclaim, \"The River Spirit claims its yearly sacrifice.\"\nEven the hard-reasoning Scotch, years ago, clung to the same\nsuperstitious fancy which oftentimes prevented some of the most selfish\nof their race from saving their drowning fellows. \"He will do you an\ninjury if you save him from the water\" was one of their fears. In\nEngland, too, the north-country people speak of the River Sprite as\nJenny Greenteeth, and children dread the green, slimy-covered rocks on a\nstream's bank or on the brink of a black pool. \"Jenny Greenteeth will\nhave thee if thee goest on't river banks\" is the warning of a Lancashire\nmother to her child.\n\nThe Irish fisherman's belief in the Souls' Cages and the Merrow, or Man\nof the Sea, was once held in general esteem by the men who earned a\nlivelihood on the shores of the Atlantic. This Merrow, or Spirit of the\nWaters, sometimes took upon himself a half-human form, and many a sailor\non the rocky coast of Western Ireland has told the tale of how he saw\nthe Merrow basking in the sun, watching a storm-driven ship. His form is\ndescribed as that of half man, half fish, a thing with green hair, long\n_green teeth_, legs with scales on them, short arms like fins, a fish's\ntail, and a huge red nose. He wore no clothes, and had a cocked hat\nlike a sugar-loaf, which was carried under the arm--never to be put on\nthe head unless for the purpose of diving into the sea. At such times he\ncaught all the souls of those drowned at sea and put them in cages made\nlike lobster pots.\n\nThe child's tale of the German fisherman and his wife tells the same\nstory--\n\n \"O Man of the Sea, come list unto me,\n For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,\n Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee.\"\n\nUnless such past credulities as these be considered it would be most\ndifficult to account for many of the sayings of child-days, and the\narchaic ideas that have drifted into our folk-lore tales. On all hands\nit is admitted that it is no unusual thing to find a game or practice\noutliving the serious performance of which it is an imitation. The\ncondition of a people who originally held such mystic and crude ideas is\nseen to-day in types of aborigines and uncivilised races.\n\nIn Halmahero, a large island to the west of New Guinea, a wizard goes\nthrough a ceremony somewhat similar to the Servian village maid's.\nCutting down branches, he dips them into the water and sprinkles the\nparched ground.\n\nIn Ceram the outer barks of certain trees are cast on the surface of\nrunning streams and rivulets and dedicated to the spirits that lie in\nthe waters, that after this offering they may arise from the depths of\nthe deep and clothe the earth with a cloud of mist.\n\n\nTHE CORN SPIRIT.\n\nAnother spirit, dreaded by all European peoples, was the Spirit of the\nCorn. In Russia especially children of the rural class sing songs of a\nvery distant age, mother handing down to child themes unexposed to\nforeign influence. It is true the Church has altered the application of\nmany by dressing up afresh pagan observances in Christian costumes.\nThere are several, but one of the songs of the Russian serf to his\nprattling offspring illustrates this statement. Before reading it, it\nshould be borne in mind that Ovsen is the Teutonic _Sun God_ who\npossessed a boar, and that the antiquity of the song belongs to a time\nwhen the Russian peasant's forefathers worshipped the glories of the\nheavens, deifying the Sun for his fire and lustre.\n\nThe translation of this poem of the fire worshippers is taken from\nRalston's _Songs of the Russian People_, and runs as follows. Imagine\nthe crooning voice of the old Slav woman singing it to her nurse child.\n\n \"In the forest, in the pine forest,\n There stood a pine tree,\n Green and shaggy.\n Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!\n\n \"The Boyars came,\n Cut down the pine,\n Sawed it into planks,\n Built a bridge,\n Fastened it with nails.\n Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!\n\n \"Who will go\n Over the bridge?\n Ovsen will go there,\n And the New Year.\n Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!\"\n\nAnother song asks--\n\n \"On what will he come?\n On a dusky swine.\n What will he chase?\n A brisk little pig.\"\n\nThe present singers of songs about Ovsen receive presents in lieu of the\nold contributions towards a sacrifice to the gods. The habit is to ask\nin some such words as these--\n\n \"Give us a pig for Vasily's Eve.\"\n\nPigs' trotters used to be offered as a sacrifice at the beginning of the\nNew Year, and the custom still prevails in Russia of proffering such\ndishes at this time. The compliments of the season are commemorated by\ngiving away the feet of the \"brisk little pig.\" The first day of the New\nYear was Ovsen's day, but now consecrated to the memory of St. Basil the\nGreat. The previous evening was called St. Basil's Eve, or Vasily's\nEve. In one of the little Russian songs it is said--\n\n \"Ilya comes on Vasily's Day,\"\n\nmeaning on St. Basil's, or New Year's Day, comes the Sun-god, or\nthunder-bearer, originally Pevan, who, under Christian influences,\nbecomes Elijah, or Ilya.\n\n \"Ilya comes on Vasily's Day;\n He holds a whip of iron wire,\n And another of tin.\n Hither he comes,\n Thither he waves,\n Corn grows.\"\n\nThis supports the inference that the agriculturist was a nature\nworshipper. But quite apart from sun worshippers, and their songs about\ncorn-growing, the children of the rural classes in many other parts of\nEurope have fixed ideas, or beliefs, in the \"Spirit of the Cornfield\";\ntheir sayings are represented by different figures, \"a mad dog in the\ncorn,\" \"a wolf in the corn,\" are found amongst the many shibboleths of\nthe youngsters playing in the fields prior to harvest-time. That they\ndread the wavy movement of the grain-laden stalks is certain, and the\nred poppy, the blue cornflower, the yellow dandelion, and the marguerite\ndaisy, although plucked by tiny hands on the fringe of the fields, it is\nnot often tiny feet trample down the golden stalks. At nightfall, in\nGermany, an old peasant, observing the gentle undulating motion of the\nripe crop while seated before his cottage, will exclaim--\n\n \"There goes the rye-wolf. The wolf is passing through the corn.\"\n\nIn some parts the \"corn spirit\" was said to be a cow.\n\n \"The cow's in the corn.\"\n\nIn one of our home counties--Hertfordshire--it is a \"mare,\" and the\ncustom of \"crying the mare\" has allusion to the corn spirit, and is\nspoken of in some villages to-day. There are several rhymes that carry a\nnotice of cornfield games.\n\n \"Ring a ring a rosies,\n A pocket full of posies.\n Hush!--The Cry?--Hush!--The Cry?\n All fall down.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little boy blue come blow me thy horn,\n The sheep in the meadow,\n The cow's in the corn.\n Where is the boy that looks after the sheep?\n Under the haystack fast asleep.\"\n\nThe \"Little Boy Blue\" rhyme, it has been urged, had only reference to\nthe butcher's boy. The rhyme is very much older than the blue-smocked\nbutcher's boy, and in truth it may be said the butcher boy of a century\nago wore white overalls.\n\nThe former rhyme, \"Ring a Ring a Rosies,\" is known in Italy and Germany.\nIn the northern counties of England the children use the words, \"Hushu!\nHushu!\" in the third line.\n\nThe Spirit of the Cornfield is dreaded by children of all European\ncountries. In Saxon Transylvania the children gather maize leaves and\ncompletely cover one of their playmates with them. This game is intended\nto prefigure death.\n\n\n\"CUCKOOS!\"\n\n \"Cuckoo cherrytree, catch a bird\n And give it to me.\"[G]\n\nThe people of the Oral and Tula Governments, especially the maidens,\nchristen the cuckoo \"gossip darlings!\"\n\nIn one of the Lithuanian districts the girls sing--\n\n \"Sister, dear,\n Mottled cuckoo!\n Thou who feedest\n The horses of thy brother,\n Thou who spinnest silken threads,\n Sing, O cuckoo,\n Shall I soon be married?\"\n\nIn _Love's Labour's Lost_ a passage occurs where the two seasons, Spring\nand Winter, vie with each other in extolling the cuckoo and the owl.\n\n _Spring._\n\n \"When daisies pied, and violets blue,\n And lady-smocks all silver white,\n And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,\n Do paint the meadows with delight,\n The cuckoo then, on every tree,\n Mocks married men, for thus sings he--\n Cuckoo!\n Cuckoo! cuckoo!\n O word of fear,\n Unpleasing to the married ear!\"\n\nThus is cuckoo gossip perpetuated in rhyme and song; but an old belief\nin the mysteriously disappearing bird gave an opportunity to children to\nawait its return in the early summer, and then address to it all kinds\nof ridiculous questions.\n\n\"How many years have I to live?\" is a favourite query. The other like\nthat of the Lithuanian maid, \"Shall I soon be married?\" meets with\nfavour amongst single girls.\n\nA German song, entitled \"The Shepherd Maiden,\" indicates this custom.\nThe words being--\n\n \"A shepherd maiden, one fine day,\n Two lambs to pasture led,\n To verdant fields where daisies grew,\n And bloomed the clover red;\n There spied she in a hedge close by\n A cuckoo, call with merry cry,\n Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!\"\n\nAfter chasing the immortal bird from tree to tree to have her question,\n\"Shall I soon be married?\" answered, the song concludes with this\ntaunting refrain--\n\n \"Two hundred then she counted o'er,\n The cuckoo still cried as before,\n Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!\"\n\nIn our earliest published song, words and music composed by John of\nForsete, monk of Reading Abbey, date 1225, and entitled \"Sumer is icumen\nin,\" the cuckoo is also extolled--\n\n \"Summer is a-coming in, loudly sing, cuckoo;\n Groweth the seed, bloweth the mead, and springeth wood anew.\n Sing, cuckoo! Merry sing, cuckoo,\n Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!\"\n\nThe peasantry of Russia, India, and Germany contribute to the collection\nof cuckoo-lore. Grimm mentions a Cuckoo Hill in Gauchsberg. The cuckoo\nand not the hill may have had the mystic sense.\n\nIdentical with this Cuckoo Hill, in its solemn significance, there\noccurs a passage in the game of Hot Cockles, played formerly at\nYorkshire funerals.\n\n \"Where is the poor man to go?\"\n\nthe friends whine, and the mutes who are in readiness to follow the\ncoffin beat their knees with open hands and reply--\n\n \"Over the Cuckoo Hill, I oh!\"\n\nThe association of ideas about the prophetic notes of the cuckoo's\nmocking voice--in matters of marriage and death--are pretty general, and\nthere are still further many points of identity in the tales told by\nthe children of India and Southern Russia. Like the Ph[oe]nix idea\namongst the people of Egypt, Persia, and India, these traditions\nallegorise the soul's immortality.\n\n\nA WORD ON INDIAN LORE.\n\nThe old prose editions of the sacred books of India--the law codes of\nthe Aryans--were suitably arranged in verse to enable the contents to be\ncommitted to memory by the students. In these rules the ritual of the\nsimplest rites is set forth. New and full moon offerings are given, and\nregulations minutely describing as to the way salutation shall be made.\n\nMuch after the fashion of the grandees or the Red Indian moon worshipper\nof North America, it is told how a Br\u00e2hmana must salute stretching forth\nhis right hand level with his ear, a Kshalriza holding it level with\nthe breast, a S\u00fbdra holding it low--all caste observances and relics of\na sign-language.\n\n\"A householder shall worship gods, manes, men, goblins, and rishis,\"\nremains of ancestral worship. \"Adoration must be given to him who wears\nthe moon on his forehead,\" the oldest known form of worship, possibly,\nof the Drift-man's period, \"and he shall offer libations of water,\noblations of clarified butter, and worship the moon.\" The butter\noblation was practised by the Celts! They have a lunar penance, \"he\nshall fast on the day of the new moon.\"\n\nThese observances belonged to a people who, without doubt, migrated from\nthe West to the East. The manes and goblins are pre-Celtic, and have\nlikewise been preserved by those who travelled, as the journey became\npossible, towards Asia. Some of our nursery tales, children's games,\nare likewise known to them. The same legends are extant in the East and\nWest, all of which have a common origin, and that a religious one.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[G] An old English child rhyme mentioned in BARNES' _Shropshire\nFolk-lore_.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n \"Oh, Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,\n Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,\n These hours, and only these, redeemed\n Life's years of ill!\"\n\nGAMES.\n\n\nThe annual calendar of dates when certain of the pastimes and songs of\nour street children become fashionable is an uncertain one, yet games\nhave their seasons most wonderfully and faithfully marked. Yearly all\nboys seem to know the actual time for the revivification of a custom,\nwhether it be of whipping tops, flirting marbles, spinning peg-tops, or\nplaying tip-cat or piggy. This survival of custom speaks eloquently of\nthe child influence on civilisation, for the conservation of the human\nfamily may be found literally portrayed in the pastimes, games, and\nsongs of the children of our streets.\n\nCurious relics of past cruelties are shadowed forth in many of the\npresent games--some of which are not uninteresting. The barbarous custom\nof whipping martyrs at the stake is perpetuated by the game of whip-top.\nIn a black-letter book in the British Museum, date 15--(?) occurs this\npassage--\n\n \"I am good at scourging of my toppe,\n You would laugh to see me morsel the pegge,\n Upon one foot I can hoppe,\n And dance trimly round an egge.\"\n\nThe apprentices of the London craftsmen followed the popular diversion\nof cock-throwing on Shrove Tuesday and tossing pancakes in the\nfrying-pan--the latter custom is still kept up at Westminster School.\nBoth bear allusion to the sufferings and torments of men who died for\nconscience sake.\n\nDice and pitch-and-toss, also modern games of the present gutter\nchildren, in primitive times were the ways and means adopted by the\nlearned to consult the oracles. Much in the same way the Scotch laddie\nand wee lassie play--\n\n \"Dab a prin in my lottery-book;\n Dab ane, dab two, dab a' your prins awa',\"\n\nby sticking at random pins in their school-books, between the leaves of\nwhich little pictures are placed. This is the lottery-box, the pictures\nthe prizes, and the pins the forfeits.\n\nAnother favourite Scotch game is--\n\n \"A' the birds of the air, and the days of the week.\"\n\nGirls' pleasures are by no means so diversified as those of boys. It\nwould be considered a trifle too effeminate were the little men to amuse\nthemselves with their sisters' game of Chucks--an enchanting amusement,\nplayed with a large-sized marble and four octagonal pieces of chalk.\nBeds, another girlish game, is also played on the pavement--a piece of\nbroken pot, china or earthenware, being kicked from one of the beds or\ndivisions marked out on the flags to another, the girls hopping on one\nleg while doing so. It is a pastime better known as Hop Scotch, and is\nplayed in every village and town of the British Isles, varying slightly\nin detail. The rhymes used by street children to decide who is to begin\nthe game are numerous.\n\nThe Scotch version of a well-known one is given below--\n\n \"Zickety, dickety, dock, the mouse ran up the nock,\n The nock struck one, down the mouse ran,\n Zickety, dickety, dock.\"\n\n \"Anery, twaery, tickery, seven,\n Aliby, crackeby, ten or eleven;\n Pin pan, muskidan,\n Tweedlum, twodlum, twenty-one.\"\n\nAmongst the notable men in the world's history who have depicted\nchildren's games, St. Luke the Evangelist tells in a pleasant passage of\nhow Jesus likened the men of His day to children sitting in the\nmarket-place and calling to their playmates--\n\n \"We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced;\n We have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept.\"\n\nA vivid picture, illustrating puerile peevishness.\n\nIn the thousands of years that street plays have been enacted by the\nyoungsters, no poet's, philosopher's, nor teacher's words have been more\nto the point. Every child wants to take the most prominent part in a\ngame, but all cannot be chief mourners, else there will be no\nsympathising weepers.\n\n \"Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the dove,\n I'll mourn for my love.\"\n\nTo-day things are better arranged, a counting-out rhyme settles the\nquestion of appointment to the coveted post. Like the\n\n \"Zickety, dickety, dock, the mouse ran up the clock\"\n\nof the north-country children.\n\n \"Whoever I touch must be he\"\n\nends and begins the counting-out verse of the Southern youngsters,\nwhich runs as follows--\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,\n All good children go to heaven.\n My mother says the last one I touch must be he.\"\n\nOf the numerous variations of this rhyme the one at present in demand by\nLondon children is--\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,\n All good children go to heaven.\n A penny on the water, twopence on the sea,\n Threepence on the railway, and out goes she.\"\n\nAnother and more generally known rhyme of--\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4,\n Mary at the cottage door\n Eating cherries off a plate,\n 5, 6, 7, 8,\"\n\nis also used for the same purpose.\n\nBut are there no peevish children to-day? None sulking in nursery or\nplayground over games just as the little Israelites did 1900 years ago\nin the market-place at Nain?\n\nRemember the lesson of old--\n\n \"We have piped, and ye have not danced;\n We have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.\"\n\n\nMARRIAGE GAMES.\n\nIn India and Japan marriage ceremonies bear a feature of youthful play.\nAmongst the Moslems in the former country--where the doll is\nforbidden--the day previous to a real wedding the young friends of the\nbridegroom are summoned to join in a wedding game. On the eve of the day\nthey all meet and surround the bridegroom-elect, then they make for the\nhouse of the bride's parents. On arrival at the gates the bride's\nrelatives shut the doors and mount guard.\n\n\"Who are you,\" exclaims the bridegroom, \"to dare obstruct the king's\ncavalcade? Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye not out to meet him?\" The\nanswer comes from within the abode. \"It is a ruse--so many thieves roam\nabout, more than probable you and your band are of them.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn England in 1557 the boys of London town sang a rhyme at their mock\nwedding feasts of--\n\n \"If ever I marry I'll marry a maid,\n To marry a widow I'm sore afraid,\n For maids are simple and never will grudge,\n But widows full oft as they say know too much.\"\n\nThis song was entered at the Stationers' Hall, 1557 A.D.\n\n\nLONDON STREET GAMES.\n\nA WEDDING.\n\nAfter the preliminary rhyme of--\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,\n All good children go to heaven.\n A penny on the water, twopence on the sea,\n Threepence on the railway, and out goes she,\"\n\nhas been said, the lot falls on one of the girls to be the bride. A ring\nis formed and a merry dance begins, all the children singing this\ninvitation--\n\n \"Choose one, choose two, choose the nearest one to you.\"\n\nThe girl bride then selects a groom from the rest of the other children.\nHe steps into the centre of the ring, joins hands and kisses her, after\nwhich, collecting a posy from each of the others, he decorates her with\nflowers and green leaves. A fresh ring is now formed--figuratively the\nwedding ring; the whole of the children caper round singing--\n\n \"Rosy apple, lemon and pear,\n Bunch of roses she shall wear,\n Gold and silver by her side,\n I know who shall be my bride.\"\n\n \"Choose one, choose two, choose the nearest one to you.\"\n\n \"Take her by her lily-white hand,\n Lead her across the water,\n Give her kisses one, two, three,\n Mrs. ---- daughter.\"\n\n\nTHE KING OF THE BARBARINES.\n\nIn this street game an entire regal court is appointed, the children\ntaking the characters of king, queen, princes, and courtiers. When these\npreliminaries are settled two children join hands and whisper\nsomething--supposed to be a great state secret--to each other. This at\nonce causes a rivalry amongst certain of the mock courtiers, and the\ndissatisfaction spreads, culminating in an open rebellion. The children\ntake sides. Things now look serious; the prime minister tells the king\nhe fears rebellion, and for safety his little majesty, attired in royal\nrobes, and wearing a paper crown, retires to his palace--one of those\nplaces \"built without walls.\" The soldiers, the king's bodyguard, are\nsummoned, and orders are given to them to suppress the insurrection and\ncapture the little rebels. As each one is taken prisoner the soldiers\nask--\n\n \"Will you surrender? Oh, will you surrender\n To the King of the Barbarines?\"\n\nDuring the struggle reinforcements come up from the rebel camp and try\nto beat off the king's soldiers, exclaiming--\n\n \"We won't surrender, we won't surrender\n To the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\n \"We'll make you surrender, we'll make you surrender\n To the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\n \"You can't make us surrender, you can't make us surrender\n To the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\n \"We'll go to the King, we'll go to the King,\n To the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\n \"You can go to the King, you can go to the King,\n To the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\nThe rebels now build an imaginary castle by joining hands. The king's\nsoldiers surround the place, and after a skirmish break it down.\n\n \"We'll break down your castle, we'll break down your castle\n For the King of the Barbarines.\"\n\n\nA LANCASHIRE ROUND GAME.\n\nTwo rows of lassies and lads face each other; the boys, hand in hand,\nmove backwards and forwards towards the girls, saying--\n\n \"I've got gold, and I've got silver,\n I've got copper, and I've got brass,\n I've got all the world can give me,\n All I want is a nice young lass.\"\n\n \"Fly to the east, fly to the west,\n Fly to the one you love the best.\"\n\nIn the scramble which takes place the young lass of each one's choice is\nseized. A ring is formed, and a rollicking dance takes places to the\ncharacteristic chorus of--\n\n \"Fol th' riddle, I do, I do, I do;\n Fol th' riddle, I do, I do, dey.\"\n\n\nROUND GAME OF THE MULBERRY BUSH.\n\n \"Here we go round the mulberry bush,\n The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush;\n Here we go round the mulberry bush\n On a cold and frosty morning.\n\n \"This is the way we wash our hands,\n We wash our hands, we wash our hands;\n This is the way we wash our hands\n On a cold and frosty morning.\n\n \"This is the way we do our hair,\" etc.\n\n \"This is the way we mend our shoes,\" etc.\n\n \"This is the way we scrub our clothes,\" etc.\n\n \"This is the way we dust our room,\" etc.\n\n\n\"PRAY, MR. FOX, WHAT TIME IS IT?\"\n\nA child stands on a hillock, or slightly elevated ground. A party of\nchildren, hand in hand, approach him whom they denominate Mr. Fox with\nthe question--\n\n\"Pray, Mr. Fox, what time is it?\"\n\n\"One o'clock,\" answers Mr. Fox.\n\nThey are safe and fall back to their den.\n\nMaking another venture they repeat the question.\n\n\"Twelve o'clock,\" shouts Mr. Fox, at the same time bounding towards them\nand scattering them in all directions. Those he can catch before they\nget back to their den are his prisoners, and the game is played until\none remains, who of course becomes the fox.\n\n\"Twelve o'clock,\" it is to be observed, is the sly, foxy answer to the\nquestion, \"Pray, Mr. Fox, what time is it?\"\n\n\"One,\" \"two,\" \"three,\" \"four,\" etc., are but evasive replies.\n\n\n\"MOTHER, BUY ME A MILKING CAN.\"\n\nA boisterous game, played by girls, especially favoured in Paddington\nand Marylebone.\n\n \"Mother, buy me a milking can, A, I, O.\n Where's the money to come from, A, I, O?\n Sell my father's feather bed.\n Where must your father sleep?\n Sleep in the boys' bed.\n Where will the boys sleep?\n Sleep in the cradle.\n Where will the baby sleep?\n Sleep in the thimble.\n What shall I sew with?\n Sew with the poker.\n Suppose I burn myself?\n Serve you right.\"\n\nAt the time of saying \"serve you right\" all the children scamper away\nfrom the girl who acts the part of mother. It is little more than a\nmild reproof on the over-indulgent mother who would sell or give\nanything to satisfy the fancies of her children, and the \"serve you\nright\" is a girl's idea of what a foolish mother deserves--less impudent\nthan corrective.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe town and country boys' game of\n\n \"Bell horses, bell horses, what time of day,\n One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away,\"\n\ncomes into fashion with all the reckless frivolity of early years, when\nthe old English festivities of Maying take place, reminding one of the\nold custom of bringing the May-pole from the neighbouring woods, when\neach of the eighty oxen yoked to the May-pole waggon had a nosegay of\nwild-flowers tied to the horns.\n\n\n\"HERE COMES A POOR SAILOR FROM BOTANY BAY.\"\n\n \"Here comes a poor sailor from Botany Bay;\n Pray, what are you going to give him to-day?\"\n\nis played as a preliminary game to decide who shall join sides in the\ncoming tug-of-war.\n\nThe chief delight of the youngsters playing \"Here comes a poor sailor,\"\nis in putting and answering questions. All are warned before replying.\n\n \"You must say neither 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Nay,'\n 'Black,' 'White,' or 'Grey.'--\n Now what are you going to give him to-day?\"\n\n \"A pair of boots.\"\n\n \"What colour are they?\"\n\n \"Brown.\"\n\n \"Have you anything else to give him?\"\n\n \"I think so; I'll go and see.\"\n\n \"What colour is it?\"\n\n \"Red.\"\n\n \"What is this made of?\" pointing to a coat or other article.\n\n \"Cloth.\"\n\n \"And the colour?\"\n\n \"Brown.\"\n\n \"Have you anything else to give him?\"\n\n \"I don't think so.\"\n\n \"Would you like a sweet?\"\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\nThe examination is finished, for one of the fatal replies has been\ngiven. The child who exclaimed \"Yes\" goes to a den. After taking all the\nchildren through the same form of questioning the youngsters are found\ndivided into two classes, those who avoided answering in the prohibited\nterms, \"Yes,\" \"No,\" \"Nay,\" \"Black,\" \"White,\" \"Grey,\" and the little\nculprits in the den or prison who have failed in the examination. The\ntug-of-war now begins, either class being pitted against the other. No\nrope is used; arms are entwined round waists, skirts pulled, or\ncoat-tails taken hold of.\n\n\n\"CAN I GET THERE BY CANDLE-LIGHT?\"\n\nThis is one of the most universally played chain games in the British\nIsles. It belongs as much to the child with a rich Dublin brogue as to\nthe Cockney boy, one thing being altered in the verse--the place, \"How\nmany miles to Wexford or Dublin\" being substituted for Wimbledon.\nCoventry and Burslem take the child fancy in the North of England.\n\nIt probably dates from Tudor times. The expression, \"Can I get there by\ncandle-light?\" and \"He went out of town as far as a farthing candle\nwould light him,\" were amongst the common sayings of the people of\nElizabeth's time.\n\n \"How many miles to Wimbledon?\n Three score and ten.\n Can I get there by candle-light?\n Yes! and back again.\n Then open the gates and let me go.\n Not without a beck and a bow.\n Here's a beck and there's a bow;\n Now open the gates and we'll all pass thro'.\"\n\nThe chain of children first formed to play this game is re-formed into\ntwo smaller ones. Hands are then uplifted by one of the sides to form an\narchway; the other children, marching in single file, approach the\nsentinel near the gateway of arched hands and ask--\n\n \"How many miles to Wimbledon?\"\n\nThe answer is given--\n\n \"Three score and ten,\" etc.\n\nWhen the gates are opened those who are alert enough pass through, but\nothers are caught and made prisoners.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nNURSERY GAMES.\n\n\nA GAME FOR A WET DAY.\n\n \"Cows and horses walk on four legs,\n Little children walk on two legs;\n Fishes swim in water clear,\n Birds fly up into the air.\n One, two, three, four, five,\n Catching fishes all alive.\n Why did you let them go?\n Because they bit my finger so.\n Which finger did they bite?\n This little finger on the right.\"\n\nThe enthusiasm with which children of all ages play this somewhat noisy\ngame can hardly be imagined. Try it, you fun-loving parents, and be\nrewarded by the tears of joy their mirth and laughter will cause.\n\nIt is played after this fashion. However, it will not be amiss to remove\nthe tea-things before anything is attempted. All seated, the parent or\nnurse then places the first and second fingers of each hand on the\ncoverlet, the youngsters imitating her. Everybody's fingers are now\nmoved up and down in a perpendicular way, like the needle of a sewing\nmachine. All singing--\n\n \"Cows and horses walk on four legs.\"\n\nThe next line requires a change, only one finger on each hand being\nused, and--\n\n \"Little children walk on two legs\" (_sung_).\n\n * * *\n\n \"Fishes swim in water clear\"\n\ndemands the waving of arms horizontally, to imitate the action of\nswimming in water.\n\n \"Birds fly up into the air.\"\n\nWhen this line is sung the hands are held up, and moved from the wrists\nlike the wings of birds flapping in the air.\n\n \"One, two, three, four, five\"\n\nis said to the clapping of hands.\n\n \"Catching fishes all alive\"\n\nis sung to the action of grabbing at supposed fishes with the fingers.\n\n \"Why did you let them go?\"\n\nEverybody shakes their head and replies--\n\n \"Because they bit my finger so!\"\n \"Which finger did they bite?\"\n\nHolding up the little finger, you answer--\n\n \"This little finger on the right!\"\n\n\n\"ANOTHER NURSERY TABLE GAME, BUT NEARLY 300 YEARS OLD.\"\n\nSome of the thousands of the nursery tales in vogue come to us without a\ntrace as to their origin. In James I.'s time the ending of ballads ran\nwith a tuneful\n\n \"Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.\"\n\nA collection of ballads in book-form by John Hilton, and called\n\"Garlands,\" are also described as the \"Ayres and Fa las\" in the\ntitle-page.\n\nHalliwell gives \"The tale of two birds sitting on a stone\" the same\ndate. It is scarcely a tale, but a game still played by all classes of\nchildren--\n\n \"There were two birds sitting on a stone,\n Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.\n One flew away, and then there was one,\n Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.\n The other flew after, and then there was none,\n Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.\n And so the poor stone was left all alone,\n Fa, la, la, la, lal, de!\"\n\nThe way boys play it may be briefly told as follows:--Pieces of paper\nare wetted and fixed on the fingers, the first finger of each hand.\nBeing thus ornamented, they are placed on the table or knee, and the\nrhyme repeated--\n\n \"There were two birds sitting on a stone.\"\n\nThen by a sudden upward movement, throwing the paper on one finger, as\nit were, over the shoulder, the next finger--the second--is substituted\nfor it, and the hand is again brought down and placed beside the\nremaining paper bird--\n\n \"Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.\"\n \"One flew away, and then there was one.\"\n\nThe same sleight-of-hand is gone through with the other finger--\n\n \"The other flew away, and then there was none,\n And so the poor stone was left all alone.\"\n\nAnother but more modern game, embodying the same idea, is told in--\n\n \"There were two blackbirds sitting on a hill,\n One named Jack and the other named Jyll.\n Fly away, Jack, fly away, Jyll.\n Come again, Jack, come again, Jyll\"--\n\nto the wonderment of the child watching the quick change of fingers.\n\nIt is the earliest sleight-of-hand trick taught to the nursery child.\n\n\nA B C GAME.\n\nA spirited game may be played after this fashion. All seated round the\ntable or fireplace. One child sings a solo--a verse of some nursery\nrhyme. For instance--\n\n \"Hi diddle diddle,\n The cat and the fiddle,\n The cow jumped over the moon;\n The little dog laughed to see such fine sport,\n And the dish ran away with the spoon.\"\n\nA chorus of voices takes up the tune and the solo is repeated, after\nwhich the alphabet is sung through, and the last letter, Z, sustained\nand repeated again and again, to bother the next child whose turn it now\nis to sing the next solo. The new solo must be a nursery rhyme not\nhitherto sung by any of the company. If unable to supply a fresh rhyme\nthe child stands out of the game and pays forfeit.\n\n\n\"I APPRENTICE MY SON.\"\n\nIn another parlour game of a rather interesting kind the youngest in the\nroom begins by saying--\n\n \"I apprentice my son to a butcher; the first thing he sold was a\n pound of M.\"\n\nEach has a turn to guess what M may stand for--some kind of meat the\nbutcher usually sells. Should the first person in the circle guess the\ncorrect meaning, it becomes his or her turn to ask the next question.\nBaker or grocer, chemist or draper, in fact any trade may be selected by\nthe person whose turn it is to put the question.\n\n\nAN ARMENIAN CHILD'S GAME\n\nof a thousand years ago is still played by the Christian children of\nAsia. Like our Western street games of tops and tip-cats it perpetuates\nthe cruelties of the persecutions which their ancestors suffered, a most\nterrible instance of the child's game outliving the serious performance\nof that which it represented. The frontier of the Armenian kingdom had\nbeen destroyed by one of the Christian Byzantine emperors, thus enabling\nthe Seljouck Turks to pass through the Armenian kingdom, and deal out to\nthe unoffending Asiatic Christians the terrors of pillage by firing\ntheir peaceful homesteads. England, France, and Germany have a\nmodification of the game. In France the youngsters hand round a burning\nfaggot, exclaiming--\n\n \"Petit bonhomme vit encore.\"\n\nGerman children play a similar game with a stick instead of a firebrand,\nand Halliwell gives the rhyme describing the English game as--\n\n \"Jack's alive and in very good health,\n If he die in your hand you must look to yourself.\"\n\n\nRUSSIAN SUPERSTITION.\n\nAn old custom of the Russian maiden--identical with the English girl's\nhabit on St. Valentine's Day--is still in vogue. Going into the street\nshe asks the first man she meets his Christian name, believing that her\nfuture husband will be sure to bear the same.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nJEWISH RHYMES.\n\n\nSports, games, and amusements were unknown until a late day in Jewish\nhistory. Within the walls of Jerusalem, or indeed throughout the whole\nlength of Palestine, no theatre, circus, hippodrome, nor even gallery\nwas to be found, until Jason, the Greek-Jew of the Maccabees dynasty,\nbecame ruler, and built a place of exercise under the very tower of the\nTemple itself. (2 Macc. iv. 10-14.) Herod subsequently completed what\nJason had begun, and erected a hippodrome within the Holy City to the\ndelight of the younger Hebrews, later building another at C\u00e6sarea.\n\nEven the festivals were not of Mosaic appointment, and it is not\ndifficult to understand how certain gloomy censors and theologians\ncondemn merriment. To serve the Lord with gladness was quite an\nafter-thought of the Israelitish leaders and teachers. But when the\ngreat fairs or wakes of the whole nation were held, pastimes and\ndiversions crept in similar to the merry meetings of our own times, and\nreligion, commerce, and amusement became the cardinal features of the\ngreat Jewish fairs.\n\nThe Guy Fawkes Festival of Judaism, the Purim Feast, appointed by Esther\nand Mordecai, commemorating deliverance from massacre which Hamar had\ndetermined by lot against them, gave occasion for relaxation. Even the\nmost austere and gloomy rejoiced, while the younger people abandoned\nthemselves to dissolute mirth, opposite sexes dressing up in the\nclothes of each other; a habit at present in favour amongst the coster\nfraternity of East London on Bank Holidays. The Jews were a peculiar\npeople. No old-time imagery of the older nations enchanted them; they\nwere carefully taught to live for themselves and by themselves, but to\nmake their profit out of others whenever possible to do so. The spoiling\nof the Egyptians took place more than once in their history. Whatever\nnation they colonised amongst had to enforce strict laws and rigid\npunishments in defence of their own less shrewd people.\n\nEven their nursery rhymes are distinctive, full of religious and\nnational sentiment, and may be counted on the fingers of one hand. They\nnecessarily know the ones in common use belonging to the country of\ntheir adoption, but so important are the two Hebrew rhymes considered to\nbe that every pious Jew teaches his child their significance. A\ntranslation of the principal one, found in the Sepher Haggadah, a Hebrew\nhymn in the Chaldee language, runs thus:--\n\n _Recitative._\n\n \"A kid, a kid, my father bought\n For two pieces of money--A kid! a kid!\n\n * * *\n\n Then came the cat and ate the kid\n That my father bought for two pieces of money.\n Then came the dog and bit the cat that ate the kid that my father\n bought for two pieces of money.\n Then came the staff and beat the dog that bit the cat, etc.\n Then came the fire that burned the staff, that beat the dog, that\n bit the cat, that ate the kid, etc.\n Then came the water and quenched the fire, that burned the staff,\n that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the kid, etc.\n Then came the ox and drank the water, etc.\n Then came the butcher and slew the ox, that drank the water, etc.\n Then came the Angel of Death and killed the butcher, etc.\n Then came the Holy One, Blessed be He! and slew the Angel of Death,\n that killed the butcher, that slew the ox, that drank the water,\n that quenched the fire, that burned the staff, that beat the\n dog, that bit the cat, that ate the kid, that my father bought\n for two pieces of money--A kid! a kid!\"\n\nNow for the interpretation--for it is a historical and a prophetic\nnursery rhyme. The kid which Jehovah the father purchased denotes the\nselect Hebrew race; the two pieces of money represent Moses and Aaron;\nthe cat signifies the Assyrians, by whom the ten tribes were taken into\ncaptivity; the dog is representative of the Babylonians; the staff\ntypifies the Persians; the fire is Alexander the Great at the head of\nthe Grecian Empire; the water the Roman domination over the Jews; the ox\nthe Saracens who subdued the Holy Land and brought it under the Caliph;\nthe butcher is a symbol of the Crusaders' slaughter; the Angel of Death\nthe Turkish power; the last stanza is to show that God will take\nvengeance on the Turks when Israel will again become a fixed nation and\noccupy Palestine. The Edomites (the Europeans) will combine and drive\nout the Turks.\n\nEveryone, big and little, will recognise the source of the nursery fable\nof \"The house that Jack built.\"\n\n \"This is the house that Jack built.\n This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.\n This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house, etc.\n This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt, etc.\n This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat, etc.\n This is the cow with a crumpled horn that tossed the little dog over\n the barn, that worried the cat that killed the rat, etc.\n This is the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with a crumpled\n horn, that tossed the little dog over the barn, etc.\n This is the man all tatters and torn, that kissed the maiden all\n forlorn, that milked the cow with a crumpled horn, etc.\n This is the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all\n tatters and torn to the maiden all forlorn, etc.\n This is the cock that crowed in the morn, that wakened the priest\n all shaven and shorn, that married the man, etc.\n This is the farmer sowing his corn, that fed the cock that crowed in\n the morn, that wakened the priest all shaven and shorn, that\n married the man all tatters and torn unto the maiden all\n forlorn, that milked the cow with a crumpled horn, that tossed\n the little dog over the barn, that worried the cat, that killed\n the rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack\n built.\"\n\nA Scotch and North of England nursery tale, two centuries old, is cast\nin the same mould, or rather built on the hymn of the Hebrews found in\nthe Sepher Haggadah. It is given below.\n\n \"There was an old woman swept her house and found a silver penny,\n And she went to market and bought a kid;\n But when she came to drive it home kid would not go.\n She went a little further and met a stick, and said to it,\n 'Stick, stick, beat kid, kid won't go, 'tis a'most midnight, and\n hame I must go.'\n But the stick would not.\n She went a little further and met a fire.\n 'Fire, fire, burn stick, stick won't beat kid, kid won't go, 'tis\n a'most midnight, and hame I must go.'\n But the fire would not.\n She went a little further and met with water.\n 'Water, water, quench fire, fire won't burn stick,' etc.\n But the water would not.\n She went a little further and met an ox.\n 'Ox, ox, drink water,' etc.\n She went a little further and met a butcher, etc.\n She went a little further and met a rope, etc.\n She went a little further and met some grease, etc.\n 'Grease, grease, grease rope.'\n She went a little further and met a rat.\n 'Rat, rat, eat grease,' etc.\n She went a little further and met a cat.\n 'Cat, cat, kill rat,' etc.\n The cat began to bite the rat, the rat began to eat the grease, the\n grease began to grease the rope, the rope to hang the butcher,\n the butcher to kill the ox, the ox to drink the water, the water\n to quench the fire, the fire to burn the stick, the stick to\n beat the kid, and so the kid went home.\"\n\nIn other accounts of the same tale the kid is a pig, the silver penny a\ncrooked sixpence; the pig would not go over the stile, and the old woman\ncould not get her old man's supper ready.\n\nThe several prefigurations are not difficult to make out. Very many of\nthe babblings put into the mouths of English children are of foreign\norigin; the story of \"The Kid\" was known in Leipsic and sung by German\nchildren in 1731, very possibly coming in this way from the Jewish\ncolony.\n\nIn Denmark it is also a favourite with the school children.\n\nThe other Jewish rhyme, kept in remembrance by modern Jews, is printed\nat the end of their Passover Service in English and in Hebrew.\n\nONE is known as the Chad Gady\u00e2. It is an arithmetical poem, and begins--\n\n \"Who knoweth One?\"\n\n \"I know One, One is God, who is over heaven and earth!\"\n\n \"Who knoweth two?\"\n\n \"I know two, two tables of the Covenant, but One is God, who\n reigneth over heaven and earth!\"\n\nWhen the Latin of our churches was on the lips of everyone in the Middle\nAges, an adaptation of this childish creed was taught to little\nChristians, beginning--\n\n \"Unus est Deus,\"\n\nbut with a Christian theme.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nAN ANCIENT ENGLISH RHYME\n\nFrom which came the well-known nursery tale of--\n\n \"A frog, who would a-wooing go.\n Hey, oh! says Rowly.\n Whether his mother would let him or no,\n With a Rowly Powly Gammon and Spinach,\n Hey, oh! says Anthony Rowly.\"\n\nIn 1549 the Scottish shepherds sang a song, entitled \"The frog that came\nto the myl dur.\" In 1580 a later ballad, called \"A most strange wedding\nof a frog and a mouse,\" was licensed by the Stationers' Company. There\nis a second version extant in _Pills to Purge Melancholy_.\n\nThe following was commonly sung in the early years of Henry VIII.'s\nreign:--\n\n \"It was a frog in the well, Humbledum, humbledum,\n And the merry mouse in the mill, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.\n The frog he would a-wooing ride, Humbledum, humbledum,\n Sword and buckler by his side, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.\n When upon his high horse set, Humbledum, humbledum,\n His boots they shone as black as jet, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.\n\n \"Then he came to the merry mill-pin,\n Saying, 'Lady mouse, be you within?'\n Then out came the dusty mouse,\n Saying, 'I'm the lady of this house.'\n\n \"'Hast thou any mind of me?' asked the gallant Sir Froggy.\n 'I have e'en great mind of thee,' her ladyship replied.\n 'Who shall make our marriage?' suggested the frog.\n 'Our lord, the rat!' exclaimed the mouse.\n 'What shall we have for supper?' the thoughtful frog exclaimed.\n 'Barley, beans, and bread and butter!' generously replied Miss Mouse.\n But when the supper they were at,\n The frog, the mouse, and the rat,\n In came Gib, our cat,\n And caught the mouse by the back;\n Then did they separate.\n The frog leapt on the floor so flat,\n In came Dick, our drake,\n And drew the frog into the lake.\n The rat ran up the wall,\n And so the company parted all.\"\n\nThe rhyming tale of \"The frog who would a-wooing go\" is similar in every\nway to the above.\n\nIn Japan one of the most notable fairy-tales relates a story of a\nmouse's wedding.\n\n\nSONGS OF LONDON BOYS IN TUDOR TIMES.\n\nIn the next two reigns, Edward VI. and Philip and Mary's, the musical\nabilities of the London boy were carefully looked after and cultivated.\nThe ballads he sang recommended him to employers wanting apprentices.\nChrist's Blue Coat School and Bridewell Seminary offered unusual\nfacilities for voice training. One happy illustration of the customs of\nthe sixteenth century was the habit of the barber-surgeon's boy, who\namused the customers, waiting for \"next turn\" to be shaved or bled, with\nhis ballad or rhyming verse; and a boy with a good voice proved a rare\ndraw to the \"bloods\" about town, and those who frequented the taverns\nand ordinaries within the City.\n\nIn the next reign the condition of the poor was much improved; the\neffect of the land sales in Henry VII.'s reign, when the moneyed\nclasses purchased two-thirds of the estates of the nobility, and spent\ntheir amassed wealth in cultivating and improving the neglected lands.\nThis factor--as well as the cessation of the Wars of the Roses--was\nbeginning to work a lasting benefit to the poor, as the street cries of\n1557 show, for, according to the register of the Stationers' Company\nthat year, a licence was granted to John Wallye and Mrs. Toye to print a\nballad, entitled--\n\n \"Who lyve so mery and make such sporte\n As they that be of the poorest sort?\"\n\n \"Who liveth so merry in all the land\n As doth the poor widow who selleth the sand?\n And ever she singeth, as I can guess,\n 'Will you buy my sand--any sand--mistress?'\n\n _Chorus._\n\n \"Who would desire a pleasanter thing\n Than all the day long to do nothing but sing?\n Who liveth so merry and maketh such sport\n As those who be of the poorer sort?\"\n\nEven Daniel De Foe, writing one hundred and twenty years after, paid a\npassing tribute to Queen Elizabeth, and said \"that the faint-hearted\neconomists of 1689 would show something worthy of themselves if they\nemployed the poor to the same glorious advantage as did Queen\nElizabeth.\"\n\nGoing back to the centuries prior to the Tudor period, one is reminded\nthat all the best efforts at minstrelsy--song, glee, or romance--came\nfrom the northern counties, or from just on either side the borders.\n\nThe prevalence of a northern dialect in the compositions show this\nsuggestion to be in a great degree real. The poems of minstrelsy,\nhowever, claim something more than dialect--the martial spirit, ever\nfever-heat on the borders of the kingdoms of England and Scotland; the\nage of chivalry furnishing the minstrel with the subject of his poem.\n\nBut with the strife of war ended, on Henry VII.'s accession, ballads\ntook the place of war-songs in the heart affections of the people, and\nthey sang songs of peace and contentment. Bard, scald, minstrel,\ngleeman, with their heroic rhymes and long metrical romances, gave way\nin the evolution of song and harmony to the ballad-monger with his\nlicence. However, in turn they became an intolerable nuisance, and a wag\nwrote of them in 1740--\n\n \"Of all sorts of wit he's most fond of a ballad,\n But asses choose thistles instead of a salad.\"\n\nAnother of the wayside songs of Henry VIII.'s time, sung by man, woman,\nand child, ran--\n\n \"Quoth John to Joan, Wilt thou have me?\n I prithee, now wilt? and I'se marry with thee\n My cow, my calf, my house, my rents,\n And all my land and tenements--\n Oh, say, my Joan, will that not do?\n I cannot come each day to woo.\n I've corn and hay in the barn hard by,\n And three fat hogs pent up in a sty;\n I have a mare, and she's coal black;\n I ride on her tail to save her back.\n I have cheese upon the shelf,\n And I cannot eat it all myself.\n I've three good marks that lie in a rag\n In the nook of the chimney instead of a bag.\"\n\nThe London surgeon-barber's boy pleased his master's patrons with a\nwhole host of similar extravagances, but he was not alone in the habit,\nfor so usual was it for the poorest of the poor to indulge in mirth,\nthat literary men of the day wrote against the practice.\n\nIn a black-letter book--a copy of which is in the British Museum, date\n1560--and entitled, \"The longer thou livest more fool thou art,\" W.\nWager, the author, says in the prologue--\n\n \"Good parents in good manners do instruct their child,\n Correcting him when he beginneth to grow wild.\"\n\nThe subject matter of this book also gives a fair view of the customs\nand habits of the boys of that age. In the character of Moros, a youth\nenters the stage, \"counterfeiting a vain gesture and foolish\ncountenance, singing the 'foote' or burden of many songs, as fools are\nwont.\"\n\nAmongst the many rhymes enumerated by Moros, which he claims were taught\nto him by his mother, occur: \"Broome on the hill,\" \"Robin lend me thy\nbow,\" \"There was a maid came out of Kent,\" \"Dainty love, dainty love,\"\n\"Come o'er the bourne, Bessie,\" and\n\n \"Tom a Lin, and his wife and his wife's mother,\n They all went over the bridge together;\n The bridge was broken and they fell in,\n 'The devil go with all,' quoth Tom a Lin.\"\n\nAnother version, more particularly the Irish one, runs--\n\n \"Bryan O'Lynn, and his wife and wife's mother,\n All went over the bridge together;\n The bridge was loose, they all fell in,\n 'What a precious concern,' cried Bryan O'Lynn.\n\n \"Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,\n So he got a sheep's skin to make him a pair.\"\n\nThis rhyme is evidently much older than the Tudor age, and one is\nreminded of the time when cloth and woollen goods were not much used by\nthe lower classes. The Tzigane of Hungary to-day wears his sheep-skin\nbreeches, and hands them down to posterity, with a plentiful supply of\nquick-silver and grease to keep them soft and clean. \"Bye baby bunting\"\nand the little \"hare skin\" is the other nursery rhyme having a\nreference to skins of animals being used for clothing. But \"Baby\nbunting\" has no purpose to point to, unless indeed the habits of the\nEsquimaux are taken in account. In the list of nursery songs sung by\nchildren in Elizabeth's reign, the following extract from \"The longer\nthou livest the more foole thou art\" gives four:--\n\n \"I have twentie mo songs yet,\n A fond woman to my mother;\n As I war wont in her lappe to sit,\n She taught me these and many other.\n\n \"I can sing a song of 'Robin Redbreast,'\n And 'My litle pretie Nightingale,'\n 'There dwelleth a Jolly Fisher here by the west,'\n Also, 'I com to drink som of you Christmas ale.'\n\n \"Whan I walke by myselfe alone,\n It doth me good my songs to render;\n Such pretie thinges would soone be gon\n If I should not sometime them remembre.\"\n\nTo get back again to the true nursery lyrics, one more marriage game of\nthis period is given, entitled--\n\n\n\"WE'LL HAVE A WEDDING AT OUR HOUSE.\"\n\n \"A cat came fiddling out of a barn\n With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;\n She could pipe nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,\n The mouse hath married the bumble-bee.\n Pipe, cat; dance, mouse;\n We'll have a wedding at our house.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nCAT RHYMES.\n\n\nThe old saying of \"A cat may look at the queen\" is thus expressed in a\ndialogue between a ward nurse of Elizabeth's time and a truant tom on\nits return to the nursery.\n\n \"_Ward Nurse_: Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?\n\n \"_Cat_: I've been to London to see the queen.\n\n \"_Ward Nurse_: Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?\n\n \"_Cat_: I frightened a little mouse from under her chair.\"\n\nNo doubt the incident giving rise to this verse had to do with the\nterrible fright Queen Bess is supposed to have had on discovering a\nmouse in the folds of her dress--for it was she of virgin fame to whom\npussy-cat paid the visit. It has been asked again and again, \"Why are\nold maids so fond of cats?\" and \"Why are their lives so linked\ntogether?\" Maybe it is to scare, as did the cat in the rhyme, \"a little\nmouse from under her chair.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Ten little mice sat down to spin,\n Pussy looked down, and she looked in.\n What are you doing, my little men?\n We're making some clothes for gentlemen.\n Shall I come in to cut your threads?\n No, kind sir, you'll bite off our heads.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne more rhyme of Queen Elizabeth's time begins--\n\n \"The rose is red, the grass is green,\n Serve Queen Bess, our noble queen.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Kitty, the spinner,\n Will sit down to dinner,\n And eat the leg of a frog.\n All the good people\n Will look o'er the steeple\n And see a cat play with a dog.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"I love little pussy, her coat is so warm,\n And if I don't hurt her she'll do me no harm;\n I won't pull her tail, nor drive her away,\n But pussy and I together will play.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Three cats sat by the fireside,\n In a basket full of coal-dust;\n One cat said to the other,\n 'Su pu, pell mell--Queen Anne's dead!'\n 'Is she?' quoth Grimalkin, 'then I'll reign in her stead.'\n Then up, up, up, they flew, up the chimney.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Great A, little b,\n The cat's in the cupboard\n And she can't C.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile;\n He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.\n He bought a crooked cat, she caught a crooked mouse,\n And they all lived together in a little crooked house.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well.\n Who put her in? Little Tommy Thin.\n Who pulled her out? Little Johnny Stout.\n What a naughty boy was that\n To drown poor pussy cat!\"\n\nOr--\n\n \"What a naughty trick was that to drown my granny's pussy cat,\n Who never did any harm, but caught the mice in father's barn.\"\n\n\nCAT TALE OF DICK WHITTINGTON.\n\nThis legend of Dick Whittington is of Eastern origin. The story of the\npoor boy whose ill-fortune was so strangely reversed by the performances\nof his cat and its kittens finds a parallel in a cat tale found in\n\"Arlott's Italian Novels,\" published 1485. The Lord Mayor of London\nbearing the name of Richard Whittington was a knight's son, a citizen of\nLondon, and never poor. The possible explanation of the cat in the\ncareer of Whittington of London had reference to a coal-boat known as a\n\"cat,\" and far more likely to make a fortune for the future Lord Mayor\nthan a good mouser would be.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nA CRADLE SONG OF THE FIRST CENTURY.\n\n\nMany authorities pronounce this lullaby to be of the earliest Christian\nera. Some believe that in times of yore the Virgin herself sang it to\nthe infant Jesus.\n\n \"Sleep, O son, sleep,\n Thy mother sings to her firstborn;\n Sleep, O boy, sleep,\n Thy father cries out to his little child.\n Thousands of praises we sing to thee,\n A thousand thousand thousands.\n\n \"Sleep, my heart and my throne,\n Sleep, thou joy of thy mother;\n Let a soothing, hushed lullaby\n Come murmuring to thy heavenly ears.\n Thousands of praises we sing to thee,\n A thousand thousand thousands.\n\n \"May nothing be wanting to thee,\n With roses I will cover thee,\n With violet garlands I will entwine thee.\n Thy bed shall be among the hyacinthus,\n Thy cradle built up with the petals of white lilies.\n Thousands of praises we sing to thee,\n A thousand thousand thousands.\n\n \"If thou wishest for music\n I will instantly call together the shepherds.\n None are before them,\n No mortal sings more holy songs.\n Thousands of praises we sing to thee,\n A thousand thousand thousands.\"\n\nIf aught be distinct in this early Christian lullaby, it is that\nold-time ideas of \"stars on high,\" \"the sky is full of sleep,\" and\nother similar figures of mythical word-pictures are wanting. A mother's\nsympathy and affection alone bind together the words of her song in\nillimitable praises--a thousand thousand thousands.\n\nMilton says--\n\n \"But see the Virgin blest\n Hath laid her babe to rest.\"\n\nWhat a bright sanctified glory the child King brought to his baby\nthrone.\n\n \"Thee in all children, the eternal child. Thee to whom the wise men\n gave adoration, and the shepherds praise.\"\n\nWhat countless hosts of child-bands are ever singing some dreamy lullaby\nof praise to their child King.\n\nIn the pastoral district of Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian\nAlps, within a day's journey from the orange groves of Mentone, a\nyearly festival takes place, when the children of the mountains sing a\nstanza recalling the Virgin's song--\n\n \"If thou wishest for music I will instantly call together the\n shepherds. None are before them.\"\n\n \"Lo! the shepherd band draws nigh,\n Horns they play,\n Thee, their King, to glorify,\n Rest thee, my soul's delight.\"\n\nNo lyrics of the nursery have come down to us fashioned after the\nfirst-century song of the Virgin. The older types have survived, and in\nsuch an unvarying mould have they been cast that there is in each\nEuropean country's song the same old pagan imagery obstinately repeating\nitself in spite of Christianity, so that the songs of the Christian\nChurch became exclusively the hymns of her faithful people, the carols\nof her festivals, and in the Middle Ages the libretto of her Church\nmystery plays, setting forth her history and doctrines to the lower\norders. If one were to remove the obstacles of idiom and grammar in the\npoetry of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, or even Russia,\nand expose the subject of the theme, a mere skeleton of past delusions\nwould remain.\n\nLong before modern European nations received this imagery of past\ncredulities the poets of Greece and Rome had versified the same old-time\nbeliefs. Before Rome was founded the Etruscan race, who flourished in\nwhat is now modern Tuscany, had the Books of the Tages fashioned in\nrhythmical mould, from which their traditions, ordinances, and religious\nteachings were drawn. They believed in genii as fervently as a Persian.\nHere is one Etruscan legend of the nursery, recalling\n\n \"How the wondrous boy-Tages sprang out of the soil just previously\n turned over by the plough in the fields of Tarquinii, and\n communicated to Lucamones the doctrines of divination, by sacrifice,\n by flight of birds, and by observation of the lightning, a son of\n genius and grandson of Jupiter.\"--_Cic. de Divin._ ii. 23.\n\nIt was the ancient tale of \"Jack and the Beanstalk.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nJACK RHYMES.\n\n\nIn the preceding chapter it was noted how the wondrous boy-Tages was\nbelieved in by the ancients. \"Jack and the Beanstalk,\" our modern tale,\nthough adapted to the present age, is the same legend, and known and\ntold in their own way by the Zulus in South Africa and by the Redskin of\nNorth America, as well as to other isolated peoples. In these tales of\nprimitive peoples the same wonderful miracle of the soil's fertility\ntakes place, in the one case by the birth of the boy-Tages, in the other\nby the marvellous growth of the twisting beanstalks which in one night\nreach up--up--up to the land of the gods and giants. \"Jack the Giant\nKiller,\" a similar legend but from a Celtic source, was known in France\nin the twelfth century, and at that period translated into Latin by\nGeoffrey of Monmouth. Both \"Jack and the Beanstalk\" and \"Jack the Giant\nKiller\" are found in the folk-lore tales of Scandinavia.\n\n\nANOTHER JACK OF THE NURSERY CLASSICS\n\nsprang up into being after the wars of Parliament, when the\npleasure-hating Puritan gained an ascendency in the land, and when the\npastimes of all classes, but more especially those of the lower orders\nwho had been so happy and contented under the Tudor sovereigns, suffered\na miserable suspension. They who were in authority longed to change the\nrobe of revel for the shroud. Not only were theatres and public gardens\nclosed, but a war of bigotry was waged against May-poles, wakes, fairs,\nchurch music, fiddles, dancing, puppet shows, Whitsun ales--in short,\neverything wearing the attire of popular amusement and diversion. The\nrhyme recording Jack Horner's gloomy conduct was, in fact, a satire on\nPuritanical aversion to Christmas festivities.\n\n \"Jack Horner was a pretty lad, near London he did dwell,\n His father's heart he made full glad, his mother loved him well.\n A pretty boy of curious wit, all people spoke his praise,\n And in a corner he would sit on Christmas Holy-days.\n When friends they did together meet to pass away the time,\n Why, little Jack, he sure would eat his Christmas pie in rhyme,\n And say, 'Jack Horner, in the corner, eats good Christmas pie,\n And with his thumb pulls out a plum,\n Saying, What a good boy am I.'\"\n\nThe copy of the history of Jack Horner, containing his witty pranks and\nthe tricks he played upon people from his youth to old age, is preserved\nin the Bodleian Library.\n\nThere are a number of men and women who recall a time when the rhymes of\n\"Jack Horner\" and \"Jack the Giant Killer\" appeared finer than anything\nin Shakespeare; but this much may be said for \"Jack Horner,\" the\ncavalier's song of derision at the straight-laced Puritan, that it soon\nlost its political signification, gradually becoming used as a mark of\nrespect.\n\n \"Thus few were like him far and nigh,\n When he to age was come,\n As being only fourteen inches high,\n A giant to Tom Thumb.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nRIDDLE-MAKING.\n\n\nRiddle-making is not left alone by the purveyors of nursery yarns,\nthough belonging to the mythologic state of thought. The Hindu calls the\nsun seven-horsed; so the German riddle asks--\n\n \"What is the chariot drawn by?\"\n\n \"Seven white and seven black horses.\"\n\nThe Greek riddle of the two sisters--Day and Night. Another one given by\n_Diog. L\u00e6rt._ i. 91, _Athenagoras_ x. 451, runs--\n\n \"One is father, twelve the children, and born to each other\n Maidens thirty, whose twain form is parted asunder,\n White to behold on the one side, black to behold on the other,\n All immortal in being, all doomed to dwindle and perish.\"[H]\n\n \"The year, months, and days.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nAn interesting English rhyme says--\n\n \"Old mother needle had but one eye,\n A very long tail which she let fly,\n Every time she went through a gap\n She left a bit of her tail in the trap.\"\n\n \"Needle and sewing cotton.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Purple, yellow, red, and green,\n The king cannot reach, nor yet the queen,\n Nor can Old Noll, whose power's so great,\n Tell me this riddle while I count eight.\"\n\n \"A rainbow.\"\n\nThis nursery rhyme's date is fixed by the reference to Old Noll, the\nLord Protector.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"As round as an apple, as deep as a cup,\n And all the king's horses can't pull it up.\"\n\n \"A well.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,\n Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;\n Three score men, and three score more,\n Cannot make Humpty Dumpty as before again.\"\n\n \"An egg.\"\n\nOr--\n\n \"And all the king's horses, and all the king's men,\n Couldn't put Humpty together again.\"\n\nPlutarch says of Homer that he died of chagrin, being unable to solve a\nriddle.\n\nThe Ph[oe]nix myth, once believed in by the Egyptian priests, is now,\nand had even so long ago as in Herodotus' time, degenerated into a mere\nchild-story of a bird, who lived, and died, and rose again from its own\nashes. As a relic of a mysterious faith, this fabulous bird has come\ndown to us with diminished glory each century. Old Herodotus, the father\nof history, tells us that he saw it once--not the bird itself, but a\npainting of it--at Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, in Egypt. Even this\nold Greek historian could not quite believe the current story in his day\nconcerning this bird; that it was supposed to revisit the earth after a\nfive-hundred-year sojourn in the land of gods was to him, at least, a\nlittle strange. Pliny, the Roman, likewise gives a description of it. \"I\nhave been told,\" he writes, \"it was as big as an eagle, yellow in\ncolour, glittering as gold about the neck, with a body-plumage of deep\nred-purple. Its tail is sky-blue, with some of the penn\u00e6 of a light\nrose colour. The head is adorned with a crest and pinnacle beautiful to\nthe sight.\"\n\nAnother ancient retells the story somewhat different to both the Greek\nand Roman historians. Thus runs the Indian version. Bear in mind,\nhowever, before reading it, that, like the Second Stone Age people, it\nwas the habit of many races in India to cremate their dead:--\n\n\"A high funeral pyre is erected of dry wood, on which the body of the\ndead is laid, and in course of time after igniting the faggots the\ncorpse is consumed. While this cineration is going on vultures and\ncarrion fowl not infrequently pounce down upon the body, and tear away\npieces of flesh from the ghastly, smoking corpse. These charred parts of\nthe body they carry away to their nests to feast upon at leisure. But\noftentimes dire results follow; the home of sun-dried sticks and litter\nignites, and the bird is seen by some of the superstitious peasantry to\nrise up out of fire and smoke and disappear.\"\n\nThen the Ph[oe]nix fable comes to mind, \"It is the sun-god; he has\nthrown fire and consumed the nest, and the old bird,\" and they hastily\nconclude that the bird they just now beheld flying away is a new one,\nand has, in fact, arisen out of the ashes they witnessed falling from\nthe branches of the tall tree. The Ph[oe]nix in truth!\n\nThe German child's rhyme, given by Grimm brothers, of\n\n \"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home,\"\n\nis not out of place here. It evidences a state of mythologic thought.\n\n \"Ladybird! ladybird! pretty one, stay!\n Come, sit on my finger, so happy and gay.\n Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home,\n Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam.\n Then ladybird! ladybird! fly away home.\n Hark! hark! to thy children bewailing.\"\n\nYearly, as these harvest bugs, with their crimson or golden-coloured\nshields, appear in our country lanes, the village youngsters delight in\ncapturing them, and play a game similar to the German child's. They\nsing--\n\n \"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home,\n Your house is on fire, your children will roam,\n Excepting the youngest, and her name is Ann,\n And she has crept under the dripping-pan.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[H] \"{heis ho pat\u00ear, paides de dy\u00f4deka; t\u00f4n de g' hekast\u00f4\n paides easi tri\u00eakont' andicha eidos echousai;\n H\u00eai men leukai easin idein; h\u00ea d' aute melainai\n Athanatoi de t' eousai apophthinousin hapasai.}\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nNURSERY CHARMS.\n\n\nTo charm away the hiccup one must repeat these four lines thrice in one\nbreath, and a cure will be certain--\n\n \"When a twister twisting twists him a twist,\n For twisting a twist three twists he must twist;\n But if one of the twists untwists from the twist,\n The twist untwisting untwists all the twist.\"\n\n\nAN ESSEX CHARM FOR A CHURN, 1650 A.D.\n\n \"Come, butter, come; come, butter, come,\n Peter stands at the gate\n Waiting for his buttered cake;\n Come, butter, come.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe late Sir Humphry Davy is said to have learnt this cure for cramp\nwhen a boy--\n\n \"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, ease us, I beg!\n The devil has tied a knot in my leg;\n Crosses three + + + we make to ease us,\n Two for the robbers and one for Jesus.\"\n\n\nA CHARM AGAINST GHOSTS.\n\n \"There are four corners at my bed,\n There are four angels there.\n Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,\n God bless the bed that I lay on.\"\n\nThe Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John rhymes were well known in Essex in\nElizabeth's time. Ady, in his \"Candle after dark,\" 1655, mentions an old\nwoman he knew, who had lived from Queen Mary's time, and who had been\ntaught by the priests in those days many Popish charms. The old woman,\namongst other rhymes, repeated--\n\n \"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,\n The bed be blest that I lay on.\"\n\nThis was to be repeated yearly, thrice on Twelfth Night, and it would\nact as a charm until the following year against evil spirits.\n\nIn 1601 a charm in general esteem against lightning was a laurel leaf.\n\n \"Reach the bays\" (or laurel leaves), \"and wear one.\"\n \"I'll tie a garland here about his head,\n 'Twill keep my boy from lightning.\"\n\nEven Tiberius C\u00e6sar wore a chaplet of laurel leaves about his neck.\nPliny reported that \"laurel leaves were never blasted by lightning.\"\n\n\nMONEY RHYMES.\n\n \"How a lass gave her lover three slips for a tester,\n And married another a week before Easter.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little Mary Esther sat upon a tester,\n Eating curds and whey;\n There came a big spider, and sat down beside her,\n And frightened little Mary Esther away!\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Sing a song of sixpence,\n A pocket full of rye;\n Four-and-twenty blackbirds,\n Baked in a pie.\n\n \"When the pie was opened\n The birds began to sing,\n Was not that a dainty dish\n To set before the king?\n\n \"The king was in his counting-house,\n Counting out his money,\n The queen was in the parlour\n Eating bread and honey.\n\n \"The maid was in the garden\n Hanging out the clothes,\n Then came a little blackbird\n And snapped off her nose.\"\n\nIn Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ Sir Toby alludes to the \"Sing a Song a\nSixpence,\" Act II., Sc. 3:--\n\n \"Come on, there is a sixpence for you; let's have a song.\"\n\nIn Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_ it is also quoted.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"There was an old man in a velvet coat,\n He kiss'd a maid and gave her a groat;\n The groat was cracked and would not go,\n Ah, old man, d'ye serve me so?\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"See-saw a penny a day, Tommy must have a new master.\n Why must he have but a penny a day?\n Because he can work no faster.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"One a penny, two a penny, hot-cross buns,\n If your daughters do not like them give them to your sons;\n But if you should have none of these pretty little elves\n You cannot do much better if you eat them all yourselves.\"\n\nWritten about 1608:--\n\n \"There's never a maiden in the town but she knows that malt's come\n down;\n Malt's come down, malt's come down from an old angel to a French\n crown.\n The greatest drunkards in the town are very, very glad that malt's\n come down.\"\n\nIn New York the children have a common saying when making a swop or\nchange of one toy for another, and no bargain is supposed to be\nconcluded between boys and girls unless they interlock fingers--the\nlittle finger on the right hand--and repeat the following doggerel:--\n\n \"Pinky, pinky bow-bell,\n Whoever tells a lie\n Will sink down to the bad place,\n And never rise up again.\"\n\n\nNUMERICAL NURSERY RHYME.\n\n \"One, two, buckle my shoe;\n Three, four, shut the door;\n Five, six, pick up sticks;\n Seven, eight, lay them straight;\n Nine, ten, a good fat hen;\n Eleven, twelve, who will delve?\n Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting;\n Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen;\n Seventeen, eighteen, maids a-waiting;\n Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty.\"\n\n\nBAKER'S MAN.\n\n \"Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man.\n Yes, I will, master, as fast as I can.\n Prick it and prick it, and mark it with B,\n And toss it in the oven for baby and me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nSCRAPS.\n\n\n \"Oh, slumber, my darling, thy sire is a knight;\n Thy mother a lady so lovely and bright.\n The hills and the dales and the towers which you see,\n They all shall belong, my dear baby, to thee.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Bye, baby bumpkin, where's Tony Lumpkin?\n My lady's on her death-bed, with eating half a pumpkin.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Nose, nose, jolly red nose.\n And who gave thee this jolly red nose?\n Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves,\n And they gave me this jolly red nose.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nStory-telling in the Reformation period was so prevalent that the\nwonderful tales were satirised in the following rhyme, dated 1588:--\n\n \"I saw a man in the moon. Fie, man, fie.\n I saw a hare chase a hound. Fie, man, fie.\n Twenty miles above the ground. Fie, man, fie.\n Who's the fool now?\"\n\n \"I saw a goose ring a hog,\n And a snail bite a dog!\n I saw a mouse catch a cat,\n And a cheese eat a rat. Fie, man, fie.\n Who's the fool now?\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nA Henry VIII. rhyme:--\n\n \"My pretty little one, my pretty honey one,\n She is a jolly one, and as gentle as can be;\n With a beck she comes anon,\n With a wink and she is gone.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Peg, Peg, with a wooden leg,\n Her father was a miller;\n He tossed a dumpling at her head,\n And swore that he would kill her.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Round about, round about\n Maggotty pie (magpie),\n My father loves good ale,\n And so do I.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Old father long-legs will not say his prayers,\n Take him by the left leg and throw him downstairs.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Half a pound of twopenny rice,\n Half a pound of treacle,\n Stir it up and make it nice,\n Pop goes the weasel.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn 1754 mothers used to say to their children--\n\n \"Come when you're called,\n Do what you're bid,\n Shut the door after you,\n Never be chid.\"\n\n\nA GAME.\n\n \"A great big wide-mouth waddling frog,\n Two pudding ends would choke a dog.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little Nanny Natty Coat\n Has a white petticoat,\n The longer she lives\n The shorter she grows.\"\n\n _Answer_--A candle.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\"As I was going down Sandy Lane I met a man who had seven wives; each\nwife had a bag, each bag held a cat, each cat a kit. Now riddle-me-ree,\nhow many were going down Sandy Lane?\"\n\n_Answer_--One going down; the others were going up.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,\n She had so many children she didn't know what to do.\n She gave them some broth without any bread,\n And whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round,\n A round roll Robert Rowley rolled round;\n Round rolled the round roll Robert Rowley rolled round.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little General Monk\n Sat upon a trunk\n Eating a crust of bread;\n There fell a hot coal\n And burnt into his clothes a hole,\n Now little General Monk is dead.\n Keep always from the fire,\n If it catch your attire\n You too, like General Monk, will be dead.\"\n\n\nMORE FRAGMENTS.\n\n \"With hartshorn in his hand\n Came Doctor Tom-tit,\n Saying, 'Really, good sirs,\n It's only a fit.'\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Cowardly, cowardly custard,\n Eats his mother's mustard.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Tommy Trot, a man of law,\n Sold his bed and lay on straw,\n Sold the straw and slept on grass\n To buy his wife a looking-glass.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Goosey, goosey, gander,\n Whither shall I wander,\n Upstairs, downstairs,\n In my lady's chamber?\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly,\n Come here and be killed.\"\n\nA nursery-tale rhyme of Henry VIII.'s time:--\n\n \"The white dove sat on the castell wall,\n I bend my bow and shoote her I shall;\n I put hir in my cloue, both fethers and all;\n I layd my bridle on the shelfe.\n If you will any more sing it yourself.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"This little pig went to market,\n This one stayed at home,\n This one had a sugar-stick,\n This one had none,\n And this one cried out wee, wee, wee,\n I'll tell my mother when I get home.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little Bo Peep she lost her sheep,\n And could not tell where to find them;\n Let them alone and they'll come home,\n Carrying their tails behind them.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"See-saw, Margery Daw, sold her bed and lay in the straw;\n Was not she a dirty slut to sell her bed and lie in the dirt?\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,\n The best man among them dare not touch her tail;\n She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow,\n Run, tailors, run, or she'll kill you all e'en now.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"I had a little moppet, I put it in my pocket,\n And fed it on corn and hay,\n There came a proud beggar\n And swore he would wed her, and stole my little moppet away.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Hub-a-dub dub,\n Three men in a tub,\n The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker,\n They all jumped out of a rotten potato.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John\n Went to bed with his stockings on;\n One shoe off, one shoe on,\n Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Jack and Jyll went up the hill\n To fetch a pail of water,\n Jack fell down and broke his crown,\n And Jyll came tumbling after.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Hi diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,\n The cow jumped over the moon,\n The little dog laughed to see such fine sport,\n And the dish ran away with the spoon.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Baa! baa! black sheep, have you any wool?\n Yes, sir; yes, sir, three bags full,\n One for the master, another for the maid,\n And one for the little child that cried in the lane.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Here comes a poor duke out of Spain,\n He comes to court your daughter Jane.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Ride to the market to buy a fat pig,\n Home again, home again, jiggerty-jig.\n Ride to the market to buy a fat hog,\n Home again, home again, jiggerty-jog.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Cross-patch, draw the latch,\n Sit by the fire and spin;\n Take a cup and drink it up,\n And call your neighbours in.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"The man of the _South_[I] he burnt his mouth\n By eating cold plum porridge,\n The man in the moon came down too soon\n To ask the way to Norwich.\"\n\n\nA LANCASHIRE FRAGMENT.\n\n \"Dance a babby diddy,\n What'll th' mammy do wi' thee?\n Come sit on her lap, theart rosy and fat,\n Dance a babby diddy.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Dickery, dickery, dock,\n The mouse ran up the clock,\n The clock struck one,\n The mouse ran down,\n Dickery, dickery, dock.\n The clock struck three,\n The mouse ran away,\n Dickery, dickery, dock.\n The clock struck ten,\n The mouse came again,\n Dickery, dickery, dock.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"There was an old woman toss'd up in a blanket\n Ninety-nine times as high as the moon,\n But where she was going no mortal could tell,\n For under her arm she carried a broom.\n 'Old woman, old woman, old woman,' said I,\n 'Whither, ah! whither, whither so high?'\n 'Oh, I'm sweeping the cobwebs off the sky,\n And I'll be with you by-and-by!'\"\n\nThe wildest idea is suggested by the rhyme of--\n\n \"We're all in the dumps, for diamonds are trumps,\n And the kittens are gone to St. Paul's;\n All the babies are bit, and the moon's in a fit,\n And the houses are built without walls.\"\n\nThe economy of the little boy who lived all alone is seen in--\n\n \"When I was a little boy I lived by myself,\n All the bread and cheese I got I put upon the shelf.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Draw a pail of water\n For my lady's daughter,\n My father's a king and my mother's a queen,\n My two little sisters are dressed up in green.\"\n\nThe baby game of tickling the palm of the hand will be remembered in--\n\n \"Round about, round about, runs the little hare,\n First it runs that way, then it runs up there.\"\n\n\nA PROVERB.\n\n \"Needles and pins, needles and pins,\n When you get married your trouble begins;\n Trouble begins, trouble begins,\n When you get married your trouble begins.\"\n\n\nA COMPLIMENT.\n\n \"The rose is red, the violet's blue,\n Pinks are sweet, and so are you.\"\n\n\nTHE REVERSE.\n\n \"The rose is red, the violet's blue,\n The grass is green, and so are you.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little Tommy Tupper, waiting for his supper,\n What must he have?\n Some brown bread and butter.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[I] _South Devon._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nSONGS.\n\n\n\"WILL THE LOVE THAT YOU'RE SO RICH IN.\"\n\n \"There was a little man and he woo'd a little maid,\n And he said, 'Little maid, will you wed--wed--wed?\n I have little more to say than will you--Yea or Nay?\n For the least said is soonest mended--ded--ded--ded.'\n\n \"The little maid replied, some say a little sighed,\n 'But what shall we have for to eat--eat--eat?\n Will the love that you're so rich in\n Make a fire in the kitchen,\n Or the little God of Love turn the spit, spit, spit?'\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Cock-a-doodle doo, my dame has lost her shoe;\n My master's lost his fiddling stick and doesn't know what to do.\n Cock-a-doodle doo, what is my dame to do?\n Till master finds his fiddling stick she'll dance without her shoe.\n\n \"Cock-a-doodle doo, my dame has found her shoe, and master's found\n his fiddling stick.\n Sing doodle, doodle doo--Cock-a-doodle doo,\n My dame will dance with you,\n While master fiddles his fiddling stick\n For dame and doodle doo.\"\n\nThe third-century monarch, King Cole, is seriously libelled in the\nnursery jingle of--\n\n \"Old King Cole was a merry old soul,\n A merry old soul was he,\n He called for his glass, he called for his pipe,\n He called for his fiddlers three.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Rowsty dowt, my fire's all out,\n My little Dame Trot is not at home! Oh my!\n But I'll saddle my cock and bridle my hen,\n And fetch my little dame home again! Home again!\n Home she came, tritty-ti-trot,\n She asked for some dinner she left in the pot;\n Some she ate and some she shod,\n And the rest she gave to the truckler's dog.\n She took up the ladle and knocked its head,\n And now poor dapsy dog is dead!\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"There was a little man and he had a little gun,\n And his bullets they were made of lead,\n He went to the brook and shot a little duck\n Right through its head, head, head.\n\n \"He took it home to his wife Joan\n And bade her a good fire to make,\n While he went to the brook where he shot the little duck\n To see if he could shoot the little drake.\n\n \"The drake was a-swimming\n With its curly tail,\n The little man made it his mark,\n He let off his gun\n But fired too soon,\n And the drake flew away with a quack, quack, quack.\"\n\nThe Creole's slave-song to her infant is built on the same lines, and\nruns--\n\n \"If you were a little bird\n And myself a gun,\n I would shoot you.\n Bum! Bum! Bum!\n\n \"Oh! my precious little jewel\n Of mahogany,\n I love you\n As a hog loves mud.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Some say the devil's dead,\n And buried in cold harbour;\n Some say he's alive again,\n And 'prenticed to a barber.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"I had a little pony, his name was Dapple Grey;\n I lent him to a lady, to ride a mile away.\n She whipped him and she lashed him,\n She rode him through the mire;\n I would not lend my pony now\n For all that lady's hire.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Little Blue Betty, she lived in a den,\n She sold good ale to gentlemen.\n Gentlemen came every day,\n And little Blue Betty she skipped away.\n She hopped upstairs to make her bed,\n But tumbled down and broke her head.\"\n\n\nTOM, TOM, THE PIPER'S SON.\n\n \"Tom, he was a piper's son,\n He learned to play when he was young;\n But the only tune that he could play\n Was 'Over the hills and far away.'\n Over the hills and a great way off,\n And the wind will blow my top-knot off.\n\n \"Now Tom with his pipe made such a noise\n That he pleased both the girls and boys,\n And they stopped to hear him play\n 'Over the hills and far away.'\n\n \"Tom on his pipe did play with such skill\n That those who heard him could never keep still;\n Whenever they heard him they began to dance,\n Even pigs on their hind legs would after him prance.\n\n \"As Dolly was milking the cows one day\n Tom took out his pipe and began to play;\n So Doll and the cows danced the Cheshire cheese round,\n Till the pail was broke and the milk spilt on the ground.\n\n \"He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,\n He used his pipe, she used her legs.\n She danced, he piped, the eggs were all broke;\n Dame Trot began to fret, Tom laughed at his joke.\n\n \"He saw a cross fellow beating an ass\n Laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;\n Tom took out his pipe and played a tune,\n And the jackass's load was lightened full soon.\"\n\n\n\"OH DEAR, WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE?\"\n\n \"Oh dear, what can the matter be?\n Oh dear, what can the matter be?\n Oh dear, what can the matter be?\n Johnny's so long at the fair.\n He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons\n To tie up my bonny brown hair.\"\n\n\nSIMPLE SIMON.\n\n \"Simple Simon went a-fishing\n For to catch a whale,\n All the water he had got\n Was in his mother's pail.\n\n \"Simple Simon went to look\n If plums grew on a thistle,\n He pricked his fingers very much,\n Which made poor Simon whistle.\n\n \"Simple Simon went to town\n To buy a piece of meat,\n He tied it to his horse's tail\n To keep it clean and sweet.\"\n\n\n\"I SAW A SHIP A-SAILING.\"\n\n \"I saw a ship a-sailing,\n A-sailing on the sea,\n And it was filled with pretty things\n For baby and for me.\n There were raisins in the cabin,\n Sugar kisses in the hold;\n The sails were made of silk,\n And the masts were made of gold.\n Gold--gold--gold!\n The masts were made of gold.\n\n \"There were four-and-twenty sailors\n A-sitting on the deck,\n And these were little white mice,\n With rings around their neck.\n The captain was a duck,\n With a jacket on his back,\n And when the ship began to sail\n The captain cried 'Quack! quack!'\n Quack!--quack!--quack!\n The captain cried 'Quack! quack!'\"\n\n\nDAVID THE WELSHMAN.\n\n \"Taffy was a wicked Welshman,\n Taffy was a wicked thief,\n Taffy came to my house\n And stole a piece of beef.\n I went to Taffy's house,\n Taffy was in bed,\n I got the poker\n And hit him on the head.\"\n\nSung in derision along the Welsh borders on St. David's Day. Formerly it\nwas the custom of the London mob on this day to dress up a guy and\ncarry him round the principal thoroughfares. The ragged urchins\nfollowing sang the rhyme of \"Taffy was a wicked Welshman.\"\n\n\n\"MY FATHER HE DIED.\"\n\nThe historical value of nursery rhymes is incapable of being better\nillustrated than in the following old English doggerel:--\n\n \"My father he died, I cannot tell how,\n He left me six horses to drive out my plough,\n With a wimmy lo! wommy lo!\n Jack Straw, blazey boys.\n Wimmy lo! wimmy lo! wob, wob, wob.\"\n\nMr. Halliwell dates it as of Richard II.'s time, and this much may be\nsaid for this opinion, that there is no greater authority than he on the\nsubject of early English rhymes and carols. Mr. Halliwell also believes\nthat of British nursery rhymes it is the earliest extant. There are\nthose, however, who dissent from this view, holding that many of the\nchild's songs sung to-day were known to our Saxon forefathers. In 1835\nMr. Gowler, who wrote extensively on the arch\u00e6ology of English phrases\nand nursery rhymes, ingeniously attempted to claim whole songs and\ntales, giving side by side the Saxon and the English versions. There\ncertainly was a phonetic similarity between them, but the local value of\nthe Saxon, when translated, reads in a strange way, being little more\nthan a protest against the Church's teaching and influence.\n\n\"Who killed Cock Robin?\" is given at length by Mr. Gowler, as well as\nmany scraps of other nursery rhymes. Mr. Gowler seemed to claim that\nthough the lettered language of each succeeding age fashions afresh, the\nBaby Kingdom knows no such vocal revolutions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nSCOTCH RHYMES.\n\n\nThe great and alluring exercise of \"Through the needle-e'e, boys\" has\nthis immemorial rhyme:--\n\n \"As I went up the Brandy Hill\n I met my father wi' gude will;\n He had jewels, he had rings,\n He had many braw things,\n He'd a cat-and-nine-tails,\n He'd a hammer wantin' nails.\n Up Jock, down Tam,\n Blaw the bellows, auld man,\n Through the needle-e'e, boys!\n Brother Jock, if ye were mine,\n I would give you claret wine;\n Claret wine's gude and fine,\n Through the needle-e'e, boys!\"\n\n\nTHE SCOTCH VERSION OF BRYAN O'LYNN.\n\n \"Tam o' the Lin and a' his bairns\n Fell n' i' the fire in other's arms!\n Oh, quo' the bunemost, I ha'e a het skin!!\n It's hetter below, quo' Tam o' the Lin.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Cripple Dick upon a stick,\n Sand your soo, ride away\n To Galloway\n To buy a pound o' woo.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Pan, pan, play,\n Pan, pan, play,\n And gi'e the bairn meal,\n It's gotten nane the day.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"The robin and the wren\n Are God's cock and hen.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Gi'e a thing, tak' a thing,\n Auld man's deid ring;\n Lie butt, lie ben,\n Lie amang the dead men.\"\n\nThe above is said by Scotch children as a reproach to one who takes\nback what he gave.\n\n\nA GRUESOME RIDDLE.\n\n \"I sat wi' my love and I drank wi' my love,\n And my love she gave me licht;\n I'll gi'e any mon a pint o' wine\n That'll read my riddle right.\"\n\nA person sitting in a chair made of the bones of a relation, drinking\nout of the skull, and reading by the light of a candle made from the\nmarrow-bones.\n\n * * * * *\n\nStreet game rhyme, something like the well-known \"How many miles to\nWimbledon?\":--\n\n \"King and Queen of Cantelon,\n How many miles to Babylon?\n It's eight and eight and other eight,\n Try to win these wi' 'candle licht.'\"\n\nTo discover a particular person in the company wearing a ring, Scotch\nchildren of last century used to say--\n\n \"Two before 1, and 3 before 5,\n Now 2, and then 2, and 4 come _belive_.\n Now 1, and then 1, and 3 at a cast,\n Now 1, and _twise_ 2, and Jack up at last.\"\n\nIn the game of Hidee the laddies and lassies cry--\n\n \"Keep in, keep in, where'ver ye be,\n The greedy gled's seekin' ye.\"\n\n\n\"WHA'S YOUR DADDIE?\"\n\n \"Little wee laddie,\n Wha's your daddie?\n I cam out o' a buskit, lady,\n A buskit, lady's owre fine;\n I cam out o' a bottle o' wine,\n A bottle o' wine's owre dear;\n I cam out o' a bottle o' beer,\n A bottle o' beer's owre thick;\n I cam out o' a gauger's stick,\n A gauger's stick's butt and ben;\n I cam out o' a peacock hen.\"\n\nIn Lancashire, where this rhyme is a popular one, the reading differs,\n\"candlestick\" being used for \"gauger's stick.\"\n\n \"A candlestick is over-fat,\n I came out of a gentleman's hat;\n A gentleman's hat is over-tall,\n I came over the garden wall;\n The garden wall is over-high,\n An angel dropped me from the sky.\"\n\nThe Scotch \"Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe\" is a sad jumble of \"Old\nMother Hubbard\" and \"Little Blue Betty.\"\n\n \"There was a wee bit wifie\n Who lived in a shoe,\n She had so many bairns\n She kenn'd na what to do.\n\n \"She gaed to the market\n To buy a sheep's head,\n When she came back\n They were a' lying dead.\n\n \"She went to the wright\n To get them a coffin,\n When she came back\n They were a' lying laughin'.\n\n \"She gaed up the stair\n To ring the bell,\n The bell-rope broke,\n And down she fell.\"\n\n\n\"THE MOON IS A LADY.\"\n\n \"The moon is a lady who reigns in the sky\n As queen of the kingdom of night;\n The stars are her army she leads forth on high\n As bright little soldiers of light.\n\n \"Her captains are Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars,\n Three glittering warriors bold;\n And the Milky Way's studded with forces of stars\n In numbers that cannot be told.\n\n \"When Aurora comes up through the Orient gate,\n And chanticleer crows to the sun,\n The moon will retire, and the stars in her wake\n Will follow their queen every one.\"\n\n R. A. FOSTER.[J]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[J] When I asked my friend, Robert Adams Foster, whose _Boy Ballads_ are\nbeing read with unusual interest in Scotland, to write a Scotch lullaby,\nhe sent me the above verses.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nA FAVOURITE NURSERY HYMN.\n\nKnown to the rustics of England, France, and Italy since the days of the\ngreat Charlemagne, has a peculiar history. Like many other rhymes of\nyore it is fast dying out of memory. The educational influences of the\nNational Schools in the former part of this century, and the Board\nSchools at a later date, have killed this little suppliant's prayer, as\nwell as most of the other rural rhymes and folk-lore tales handed down\nby mother to child.\n\nThe hymn, though still used in some parts of Northern England, and\nespecially amongst the Nonconformists, as a child's evening ode of\npraise, runs--\n\n \"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,\n Look upon this little child;\n Pity my simplicity,\n Suffer me to come to Thee.\"\n\nThe next verse, a more modern addition, is--\n\n \"Fain I would to Thee be brought,\n Lamb of God, forbid it not;\n In the kingdom of Thy grace\n Give this little child a place.\"\n\nLeo III. is the supposed author of the book in which it is found, viz.,\n_Enchiridion Leonis Papae_. However, the _Enchiridion_ was a book of\nmagic, and not authorised by the Church of Rome, but used by spurious\nmonks and charlatans, wizards and quacks, in their exploits amongst the\ncredulous rural folk. It was full of charms, prayers, and rhymes to ward\noff evil spirits. The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John verses are part of\nthe same \"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.\" The _Enchiridion_ was first\npublished in 1532. This hymn was, in the main, derived from the White\nPaternoster, and handed down to posterity and preserved by the rustics.\n\n\nTHE LATIN VERSION OF THE VIRGIN'S LULLABY.\n\n \"Dormi fili, dormi! mater\n Cantat unigenito,\n Dormi, puer, dormi! pater\n Nato clamat parvulo:\n Millies tibi laudes canimus\n Mille, mille, millies.\n\n \"Dormi cor, et meus thronus,\n Dormi matris jubilum;\n Aurium c[oe]lestis sonus.\n Et suave sibilum!\n Millies tibi laudes canimus\n Mille, mille, millies.\n\n \"Ne quid desit, sternam rosis\n Sternam f[oe]num violis,\n Pavimentum hyacinthis\n Et praesepe liliis\n Millies tibi laudes canimus\n Mille, mille, millies.\n\n \"Si vis musicam, pastores\n Convocabo protinus\n Illis nulli sunt priores;\n Nemo canit castius\n Millies tibi laudes canimus\n Mille, mille, millies.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n\n\"THERE WAS A MAID CAME OUT OF KENT.\"\n\n \"There was a maid came out of Kent,\n Dangerous be, dangerous be;\n There was a maid came out of Kent,\n Fayre, propre, small, and gent\n As ever upon the ground went,\n For so should it be.\"\n\nOf authentic currency in Mary's time.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Martin Smart and his man, fodledum, fodledum;\n Martin Smart and his man, fodledum, bell.\"\n\nSame date.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"I see the moon, and the moon sees me;\n God bless the moon, and God bless me.\"\n\nChild's saying.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"1, 2, 3, 4, 5,\n I caught a hare alive;\n 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,\n I let her go again.\"\n\nCounting-out rhyme.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Great | A was a | larm'd at | B's bad be | haviour,\n Be | cause C | D, E, F de | nied G a | favour;\n H had a | husband with | I, J, | K and L;\n M married | Mary, and | taught | her scholars | how to spell\n A B C, D E F G, H I J K L M,\n N O P Q, R S T U, V W X Y Z, Z, Z.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Hush-a-by, baby, on a green bock (Saxon for bough);\n When the wind blows the cradle will rock.\"\n\n\nA NURSERY TALE.\n\n\"I saddled my sow with a sieve of butter-milk, put my foot into the\nstirrup, and leaped up nine miles beyond the moon into the land of\ntemperance, where there was nothing but hammers and hatchets and\ncandlesticks, and there lay bleeding Old Noll. I let him lie and sent\nfor Old Hipper Noll, and asked him if he could grind green steel five\ntimes finer than wheat flour. He said he could not. Gregory's wife was\nup a pear tree gathering nine corns of buttered beans to pay St. James's\nrent. St. James was in a meadow mowing oat cakes; he heard a noise, hung\nhis scythe to his heels, stumbled at the battledore, tumbled over the\nbarn door ridge, and broke his shins against a bag of moonshine that\nstood behind the stairs-foot door; and if that isn't true, you know as\nwell as I all about it.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"A duck, a drake, a barley cake,\n A penny to pay the baker;\n A hop, a scotch, another notch--\n Slitherum, slitherum, take her.\"\n\nA verse repeated when playing at skimming shells or stones on the water\nof a pond or lake.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,\n The beggars are coming to town.\n There are some in rags,\n There are some in tags,\n And one in a velvet gown.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Bow-wow-wow,\n Whose dog art thou?\n I'm Tommy Tucker's dog,\n Bow-wow-wow!\"\n\nPope wrote an epigram which he had engraved on the collar of a dog, and\ngave it to H.R.H.:--\n\n \"I am his Highness' dog at Kew;\n Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?\"\n\n\nA B C JINGLES.\n\n \"A was an Archer that shot at a frog,\n B was a Butcher--he had a big dog,\n C was a Captain all covered with lace,\n D was a Dunce with a very long face.\"\n\n \"A was an apple pie;\n B bit it,\n C cut it,\n D danced for it,\n E eat it,\n F fought for it,\n G got it,\n H hid it,\" etc. etc.\n\n\nA CATCH RHYME.\n\n \"Tottle 'em, bottle 'em, bother aboo,\n Who can count from one to two?\"\n \"I can, I can!\" \"Do, do.\"\n \"One and two----\" \"See, calf, see,\n That's not two, but three, three.\"\n \"Three or two's all one to me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nBELL RHYMES.\n\n\nThe jingle of the bells in nursery poetry is certainly the prettiest of\nall the features in the poetical fictions of Baby-land.\n\nThe oft-repeated rhyme of--\n\n \"Ride a cock-horse to _Banbury Cross_,[K]\n To see a _fair_[L] lady upon a white horse;\n _Bells_[M] on her fingers and bells on her toes,\n She will have music wherever she goes,\"\n\nhas a charm with every child.\n\nThe ride of my Lady of Godiva is fancifully suggested by the Coventry\nversion.\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Bell horses, bell horses, what time of day?\n One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"_Gay go up and gay go down_\n To ring the bells of London town.\n\n \"Bull's-eyes and targets, say the bells of St. Marg'-ret's;\n Brick-bats and tiles, chime the bells of St. Giles';\n Halfpence and farthings, ring the bells of St. Martin's;\n Oranges and lemons, toll the bells of St. Clement's;\n Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. Peter's;\n Two sticks and an apple, say the bells of Whitechapel;\n Old Father Baldpate, toll the slow bells of Aldgate;\n You owe me ten shillings, say the bells of St. Helen's;\n When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey;\n When I grow rich, chime the bells of Shoreditch;\n Pray when will that be? ask the bells of Stepney;\n I'm sure I don't know, tolled the big bell at _Bow_.\n\n \"Gay go up and gay go down\n To ring the bells of London town.\"\n\nThis almost forgotten nursery song and game of \"The Bells of London\nTown\" has a descriptive burden or ending to each line, giving an\nimitation of the sounds of the bell-peals of the principal churches in\neach locality of the City and the old London suburbs. The game is played\nby girls and boys holding hands and racing round sideways, as they do in\n\"Ring a Ring a Rosies,\" after each line has been sung as a solo by the\nchildren in turns. The\n\n \"Gay go up and gay go down\n To ring the bells of London town\"\n\nis chorussed by all the company, and then the rollicking dance begins;\nthe feet stamping out a noisy but enjoyable accompaniment to the words,\n\"Gay go up, gay go down.\"\n\nThe intonation of the little vocal bell-ringers alters with each line,\n\n \"Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. Peter's,\"\n\nbeing sung to a quick tune and in a high key;\n\n \"Old Father Baldpate, toll the slow bells of Aldgate,\"\n\nsuggesting a very slow movement and a deep, low tone.\n\nThe round singing of the ancients, of which this game is a fitting\nillustration, is probably a relic of Celtic festivity. The burden of a\nsong, chorussed by the entire company, followed the stanza sung by the\nvocalist, and this soloist, having finished, had licence to appoint the\nnext singer, \"canere ad myrtum,\" by handing him the myrtle branch. At\nall events round singing was anciently so performed by the Druids, the\nBardic custom of the men of the wand.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn Lancashire--\n\n \"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,\n How does your garden grow?\n With cockle shells and silver bells,\n And pretty maids all in a row,\"\n\nis one of the songs the cottage mother sings to her child.\n\nThe Proven\u00e7al--\n\n \"Ding dong, ding dong,\n Ring the bells of St. John's.\n Now they are saying prayers.\n Why ring so high?\n 'Tis the little children in the sky!\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Maids in white aprons, say the bells of St. Catherine's.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nEvery locality furnishes examples of bell rhymes. Selling the church\nbells of Hutton, in Lincolnshire, gave rise to this satire of the\nchildren--\n\n \"The poor Hutton people\n Sold their bells to mend the steeple.\n Ah! wicked people,\n To sell their bells\n To build the steeple.\"\n\nIn 1793 Newington Church, London, was pulled down, the bells sold, and\nthe sacred edifice rebuilt without a belfry. The children of the\nneighbouring parishes soon afterwards jeered at the Newingtonians.\n\n \"Pious parson\" (they sang), \"pious people,\n Sold their bells to build a steeple.\n A very fine trick of the Newington people\n To sell their bells and build no steeple.\"\n\nIn Derbyshire a large number of the churches have bells with peculiar\npeals--\n\n \"Crich has two roller-boulders,\n Wingfield ting-tangs,\n Alfreton kettles,\n And Pentrich pans.\n Kirk-Hallan candlesticks,\n Corsall cow-bells,\n Denby cracked puncheons,\n And Horsley merry bells.\"\n\nThe bells of Bow Church ringing out the invitation to Dick Whittington\nto return to his master's house should not be forgotten--\n\n \"Turn again, Whit-ting-ton,\n Lord-Mayor-of London.\"\n\nIn New York, U.S.A., the little school urchins sing a bell rhyme of--\n\n \"Hark, the merry bells from Trinity\n Charm the ear with their musical din,\n Telling all throughout the vicinity\n Holy-day gambols are now to begin.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[K] Or Coventry Cross.\n\n[L] Fine.\n\n[M] Rings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nPOLITICAL SIGNIFICATIONS OF NURSERY RHYMES.\n\n\nIn 1660, when the Restoration of Charles II. took place, the great\nprocession of State to St. Paul's Cathedral called forth this rhyme:--\n\n \"Come, Jack, let's drink a pot of ale,\n And I shall tell thee such a tale\n Will make thine ears to ring.\n My coin is spent, my time is lost,\n And I this only fruit can boast,\n That once I saw my king!\"\n\nA Roundhead sneer at the man in the street, after the Royalist\nrejoicings were over.\n\nIn a copy of rhyming proverbs in the British Museum, written about the\nyear 1680, occurs the following Puritan satire on Charles II.'s\nchangeability:--\n\n \"A man of words and not of deeds,\n Is like a garden full of weeds;\n And when the weeds begin to grow,\n It's like a garden full of snow;\n And when the snow begins to fall,\n It's like a bird upon the wall;\n And when the bird away does fly,\n It's like an eagle in the sky;\n And when the sky begins to roar,\n It's like a lion at your door;\n And when the door begins to crack,\n It's like a stick across your back;\n And when your back begins to smart,\n It's like a penknife in your heart;\n And when your heart begins to bleed,\n You're dead, you're dead, and dead indeed.\"\n\nAmong Marvel's works (vol. i. pp. 434-5) a witty representation of the\nking's style of speech is given with the _jeu d'esprit_ so\ndistinctively peculiar to Marvel:--\n\n \"My proclamation is the true picture of my mind. Some may perhaps be\n startled and cry, 'How comes this sudden change?' To which I answer,\n 'I am a changeling, and that's sufficient, I think. But, to convince\n men further that I mean what I say, these are the arguments. First,\n I tell you so, and you know I never break my word; secondly, my Lord\n Treasurer says so, and he never told a lie in his life; thirdly, my\n Lord Lauderdale will undertake it for me. I should be loath by any\n act of mine he should forfeit the credit he has with you.'\"\n\nIn England Charles gave his Royal Indulgence to Dissenters, and granted\nthem full liberty of conscience. They who had been horribly plundered\nand ill-treated now built meeting-houses, and thronged to them in\npublic. Shaftesbury, who afterwards became a Papist, exclaimed, \"Let us\nbless God and the king that our religion is safe, that parliaments are\nsafe, that our properties and liberties are safe. What more hath a good\nEnglishman to ask, but that the king may long reign, and that this\ntriple alliance of king, parliament, and the people may never be\ndissolved?\" But Charles had a standing army in Scotland, with the Duke\nof Lauderdale as Lord High Commissioner, and all classes of people in\nthat country were obliged to depose on oath their knowledge of persons\nworshipping as Dissenters, on penalty of fine, imprisonment, banishment,\ntransportation, and of being sold as slaves. Persecutions of former\ntimes were surpassed, the thumbscrew and the boot were used as mild\npunishments, the rack dislocated the limbs of those who respected\nconscience, and the stake consumed their bodies to ashes. Villagers were\ndriven to the mountains, and eighteen thousand Dissenters perished, not\ncounting those who were accused of rebellion. He was \"a man of words,\"\nand the rhyme of this period depicts his whole character.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTwo of the courtezans of Charles II.'s time were Lucy Locket and Kitty\nFisher. The following rhyme suggests that Kitty Fisher supplanted Lucy\nLocket in Charles' fickle esteem--\n\n \"Lucy Locket lost her pocket,\n Kitty Fisher found it;\n Nothing in it, nothing in it,\n But the binding round it.\"\n\nOn his death-bed the monarch commended the Duchesses of Cleveland and\nPortsmouth to his successor, and said to James, \"Do not let poor Nelly\n(Nell Gwynne) starve!\" Even their pockets were as badly lined as Lucy\nLocket's.\n\nThe hatred of the Roman Catholic religion \"had become,\" said Macaulay,\n\"one of the ruling passions of the community, and was as strong in the\nignorant and profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction.\"\nCharles II. was suspected by many of leaning towards the Roman Catholic\nreligion. His brother, and heir presumptive, was discovered to be a\nbigoted Catholic, and in defiance to the remonstrances of the House of\nCommons had married another papist--Mary of Modena.\n\nThe common people apprehended a return of the times of her whom they\nunreasonably called Bloody Mary. Sons of this marriage, they feared,\nmeant a long succession of princes and kings hostile to the Protestant\nfaith and government by the people. In 1689, when William of Orange\nbecame king in James II.'s place, a political squib went off in the\nstyle of a nursery lullaby, entitled \"Father Peter's policy discovered;\nor, the Prince of Wales proved a Popish Perkin\"--\n\n \"In Rome there is a fearful rout,\n And what do you think it's all about?\n Because the birth of the Babe's come out!\n Sing, Lalla by babee, by, by, by.\"\n\nThe Douce MS. contains--\n\n \"See-saw, sack a day,\n Monmouth is a pretie boy, Richmond is another;\n Grafton is my onely joy, and why should I these three destroy\n To please a pious brother?\"\n\nAt the beginning of this present century the renowned Pastorini\ncontributed his share to simple rhyming. A writer in the _Morning\nChronicle_ of that period points out Pastorini as being no less a\npersonage than the Right Rev. Charles Walmesley, D.D., a Roman Catholic\nprelate, whose false prophecies under the name of Pastorini were\nintended to bring about the events they pretended to foretell--the\ndestruction of the Irish Protestants in 1825. Just previous to this year\nevery bush and bramble in Ireland had this remarkable couplet affixed to\nit--\n\n \"In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-five\n There shall not be a Protestant left alive.\"\n\nIn 1835, when the efforts of the Whig Ministry to despoil the Irish\nChurch proved so strong, a writer in the Press caricatured Lord Grey,\nLyttleton, Dan O'Connell, and Lord Brougham in the following nursery\nrhymes. The attempt was ingenious, but only of small value as showing\nthe rhymes to be the popular ones of that day.\n\n \"There was an old woman, as I've heard tell,\n She went to the market her eggs to sell.\"\n\nAnd--\n\n \"Robbin, a bobbin, the big-bellied Ben,\n He ate more meat than threescore men;\n He eat a cow, he eat a calf,\n He eat a butcher and a half;\n He eat a church, he eat a steeple,\n He eat the priest and all the people.\"\n\nThe other rhymes were--\n\n \"There was an old woman went up in a basket\n Ninety-nine times as high as the moon,\n Where she was going I couldn't but ask it,\n For in her hand she carried a Brougham!\n Old woman, old woman, old woman, said I,\n Why are you going up so high?\n To sweep the cobwebs off the sky,\n But I'll be with you by-and-by.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n \"Old Mother Bunch, shall we visit the moon?\n Come, mount on your broom, I'll stride on the spoon;\n Then hey to go, we shall be there soon!\"\n\nThis rhyme was sung at the time in derision to Earl Grey's and Lord\nBrougham's aerial, vapoury projects of setting the Church's house in\norder.\n\n\"Lord Grey,\" said the satire-monger, \"provided the cupboards and larders\nfor himself and relatives. He was a paradoxical 'old woman' who could\nnever keep quiet.\"\n\n \"There was an old woman, and what do you think,\n She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink;\n Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet,\n And yet this old woman could never keep quiet.\"\n\nAs a prototype of reform this old woman was further caricatured as\nMadame Reform.\n\nThe going \"up in a basket ninety-nine times as high as the moon\"\nreferred to Lord Grey's command to the English bishops to speedily set\ntheir house in order. The ascent was flighty enough, \"ninety-nine times\nas high as the moon, to sweep the cobwebs off the sky\"--in other words,\nto set the Church, our cathedrals and bishops' palaces in order--and\naugured well; but this old woman journeyed not alone, in her hand she\ncarried a broom (Brougham). It may have been a case of ultra-lunacy this\njourney of ninety-nine times as high as the moon, and \"one cannot help\nthinking,\" said a writer of that period, \"of the song, 'Long life to the\nMoon'; but this saying became common, 'If that time goes the coach, pray\nwhat time goes the basket?'\"\n\nThe \"Robbin, a bobbin, the big-bellied Ben\" parody alluded to Dan\nO'Connell; the butcher and a half to the Northamptonshire man and his\ndriver; eating \"church\" and \"steeple\" meant Church cess.\n\nO'Connell certainly did cut the Church measure about. In his curtailment\nhe would not leave a room or a church for Irish Protestants to pray in.\n\n\"Little dog\" refers to Lyttleton in the nursery rhyme, for when the\nunder-trafficing came to light, Lord Grey, it is said, was so bewildered\nat his position that he doubted his own identity, and exclaimed--\n\n \"If I be I, as I suppose I be,\n Well, I've a 'Little dog,' and he'll know me!\"\n\n\nFINIS\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Endnote:\n\n The following amendments have been made to the original text:\n\n P. 96. _But the stick would not._ has been added as line 6 of the\n poem beginning \"There was an old woman swept her house ...\"","title":"A History of Nursery Rhymes","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":25902}