A History of Nursery Rhymes

PART I.. Chap.

CHAP. I. Prehistoric man--His language one of signs and sounds--The story of Psammetichus and the Two Babies--Idiom of language a survival of primitive peoples 1

II. Modern types of early man--Sign-language of people living on the globe to-day--The custom of the UVINZA grandees--The "good-morning" of the Walunga tribe--Signs of hospitality in the sign vocabulary of the North American Indian--The "attingere extremis digitis" of the Romans--Clap-hands one of the first lessons of the Nursery--The modern survival of hand-clapping--"Is it rude to shake hands, Nurse?"--A hypercritical mother--Plato's rebuke--Agesilaus and his children--Nursery classics and critical babies--"Lalla, lalla, lalla" of the Roman child--The well-known baby dance of "Crow and caper, caper and crow" 8

III. Writers on comparative religions show that entire religious observances come down to modern peoples from heathen sources--The Bohemian Peasant and his Apple Tree--A myth of long descent found in the rhyme of "A Woman, a Spaniel, and Walnut Tree"; our modern "Pippin, pippin, fly away," indicates the same sentiment--The fairy tale of Ashputtel and the Golden Slipper, the legend from which came our story of Cinderella--Tylor on Children's Sports--The mystery of Northern Europe at Christ's coming--The Baby's Rattle--Ancestral worship follows sun and moon worship, and gives us the tales of fairies, goblins, and elves--Boyd Dawkins' story of the Isle of Man farmer--A Scandinavian Manxman--Modernised lullaby of a Polish mother--"Shine, Stars"--"Rain, rain, go away"--Wind making--LULLABIES--Bulgarian, German, "Sleep, Baby, Sleep"--The lullaby of the Black Guitar--"Baby, go to Sleep"--English version, "Hush thee, my Babby"--Danish lullaby of "Sweetly sleep, my little Child"--"Bye, baby bunting" 17

IV. Elf-land--Old-time superstitions--A custom of providing a feast for the dead known in Yorkshire, North-west Ireland, and in Armenia--The Erl King of Goethe--Ballet of the Leaf-dressed Girl--The Spirit of the Waters--An Irish legend of Fior Usga--Scotch superstition--Jenny Greenteeth of Lancashire--The Merrow of the West of Ireland--Soul Cages--The German rhyme of "O Man of the Sea, come list unto Me"--Mysticism among uncivilised races--The Corn Spirit--The Rye-wolf--"The Cow's in the Corn"--"Ring a ring a rosies"--"Cuckoo Cherry Tree"--Our earliest song, "Summer is a-coming in"--"Hot Cockles" at Yorkshire funerals--"Over the Cuckoo Hill, I oh!"--Indian Lore 34

PART II.. I. Games--Whipping-Tops, Marbles, Etc.--"i Am Good At Scourging

I. GAMES--Whipping-tops, Marbles, etc.--"I am good at Scourging of my Toppe," date 15--(?)--Dice and Pitch-and-Toss--"Dab a Prin in my Lottery Book"--"A' the Birds of the Air"--Hop Scotch--"Zickety, dickety, dock"--"All good Children go to Heaven"--"Mary at the Cottage Door."

MARRIAGE GAMES--"If ever I Marry I'll Marry a Maid," 1557 A.D.--London Street Games--A Wedding--"Choose one, choose two, choose the nearest one to you"--"Rosy Apple, Lemon, and Pear"--The King of the Barbarines--"I've got Gold and I've got Silver"--A Lancashire Round Game--"Fol th' riddle, I do, I do, I do"--Round Game of the Mulberry Bush--"Pray, Mr. Fox, what time is it?"--"Mother, buy me a Milking Can"--"Here comes a Poor Sailor from Botany Bay"--"Can I get there by Candle-light?" 58

II. NURSERY GAMES--A Game for a Wet Day--"Cows and Horses walk on four legs"--A Game nearly 300 years old--"There were two birds sitting on a stone"--A B C Game--"Hi diddle diddle"--"I Apprentice my Son"--An Armenian Child's Game, "Jack's Alive"--Russian Superstition 80

III. JEWISH RHYMES--"A kid, a kid my father bought for two pieces of money--a kid! a kid!"--"The house that Jack built"--The Scotch version, "There was an old woman swept her house and found a silver penny"--The Chad Gadyâ--"Who knoweth One" 89

IV. An ancient English Rhyme--"A Frog who would a-wooing go," the version of same sung in Henry VIII.'s reign--Songs of London Boys in Tudor times--"Quoth John to Joan"--"Good parents in good manners do instruct their child"--"Tom a Lin"--"Bryan O'Lynn"--Four songs sung by children in Elizabeth's reign--"We'll have a Wedding at our House" 100

V. CAT RHYMES--"Pussy-cat, pussy-cat"--"Ten little mice sat down to spin"--"The rose is red, the grass is green"--"I Love little Pussy"--"Three Cats sat by the Fireside"--"There was a Crooked Man"--"Ding dong bell"--Cat tale of Dick Whittington 112

VI. A Cradle Song of the first century, "Sleep, O son, sleep" 117

VII. JACK RHYMES 123

VIII. RIDDLE MAKING--German riddle of "Seven White and Seven Black Horses"--Greek riddle of the Two Sisters; another of "The year, months, and days"--"Old Mother Needle"--"Purple, yellow, red, and green"--"As round as an Apple"--"Humpty Dumpty"--The Phnix fable--"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home" 127

IX. NURSERY CHARMS--"When a twister twisting twists him a twist"--An Essex Charm for a Churn--"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" Charms.

MONEY RHYMES--"How a lass gave her lover three slips for a tester"--"Little Mary Esther"--"Sing a Song of Sixpence"--"There was an old man in a velvet coat"--"See-saw"--"One a penny"--"There's never a maiden in all the town"--"Pinky, pinky, bow-bell"--Numerical Nursery Rhyme--Baker's Man 134

X. SCRAPS--"Oh, slumber, my darling, thy sire is a knight"--"Bye, baby bumpkin"--"Nose, nose, jolly red nose"--"I saw a man in the moon"--A Henry VIII. Rhyme--"Peg-Peg"--"Round about"--"Father Long-legs"--"Two-penny rice"--"Come when you're called"--A Game--"Nanny Natty Coat"--"As I was going down Sandy Lane"--"There was an old woman"--"Robert Rowley"--"Little General Monk"--"Dr. Tom Tit"--"Tommy Trot"--"Goosey Gander"--"The White Dove sat on the Castell Wall"--"This Little Pig"--"Little Bo Peep"--"See-saw, Margery Daw"--"Four-and-twenty Tailors"--"Little Moppet"--"Hub-a-dub, dub"--"Diddle Dumpling"--"Jack and Jyll"--"The Cat and the Fiddle"--"Baa! baa! black sheep"--"Here comes a poor Duke out of Spain"--"Ride to the market"--"Cross-patch"--"The Man of the South"--A Lancashire Fragment--"Dickery dock"--"There was an old woman toss'd up in a blanket"--"We're all in the dumps"--A Proverb--A Compliment--The Reverse 141

XI. SONGS--"Will the love that you're so rich in?"--"Cock-a-doodle doo"--"King Cole"--"Rowsty dowt"--"There was a Little Man"--The Creole's Song--"Dapple Grey"--"Blue Betty"--"Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son"--"Oh dear, what can the matter be?"--"Simple Simon"--"I saw a Ship a-sailing"--"David the Welshman"--"My Father he Died" 152

XII. SCOTCH RHYMES--"As I went up the Brandy Hill"--Scotch version of Bryan O'Lynn--"Cripple Dick"--"Pan, Pan, Play"--"Gi'e a thing"--A Gruesome Riddle--"King and Queen of Cantelon"--Hidee--"Wha's your Daddie?"--"The Moon is a Lady" 162

XIII. A favourite Nursery Hymn--The Latin version of the Virgin's Lullaby 169

XIV. "There was a maid came out of Kent"--"Martin Smart"--"Great A, little B"--A Nursery Tale--"A duck, a drake"--"Hark! Hark!"--A B C Jingles--A Catch Rhyme 173

XV. BELL RHYMES--"Banbury Cross"--"Gay go up, and gay go down"--"Mary, Mary, quite contrary"--The Provençal "Ding-dong" 178

XVI. Political Significations of Nursery Rhymes--"Come, Jack"--"A man of words"--Pastorini, Lord Grey, Lyttleton, Dan O'Connell, and Lord Brougham caricatured 185

INTRODUCTION

Without advancing any theory touching the progression of the mother's song to her babe, other than declaring lullabies to be about as old as babies, a statement which recalls to mind an old story, entitled "The Owl's Advice to an Inquisitive Cat."

"O cat," said the sage owl of the legend, "to pass life agreeably most of all you need a philosophy; you and I indeed enjoy many things in common, especially night air and mice, yet you sadly need a philosophy to search after, and think about matters most difficult to discover." After saying this the owl ruffled his feathers and pretended to think.

But the cat observed that it was foolish to search after such things. "Indeed," she purringly said, "I only trouble about easy matters."

"Ah! I will give you an example of my philosophy, and how inquiry ought to be made. You at least know, I presume," scoffingly exclaimed the owl, "that the chicken arises from the egg, and the egg comes from the hen. Now the object of true philosophy is to examine this statement in all its bearings, and consider which was first, the egg or the bird."

The cat was quite struck with the proposition.

"It is quite clear," went on the owl, "to all but the ignorant, one or other appeared first, since neither is immortal."

The cat inquired, "Do you find out this thing by philosophy?"

"Really! how absurd of you to ask," concluded the feathered one. "And I thank the gods for it, were it as you suggest, O cat, philosophy would give no delight to inquirers, for knowing all things would mean the end and destruction of philosophy."

With this owl's apology nursery-lore is presented to my readers without the legion of verified references of that character demanded as corroborative evidence in the schools of criticism to-day.

A few leading thoughts culled from such men as Tylor, Lubbock, Wilson, McLennan, Frazer, and Boyd Dawkins, etc., the experiences of our modern travellers among primitive races, Indian and European folk-lore, the world's credulities past and present, have helped me to fix the idea that amongst the true historians of mankind the children of our streets find a place.

A HISTORY OF NURSERY RHYMES

PART I.. Chapter I.

CHAPTER I.

"The scene was savage, but the scene was new."

Scientists tell us many marvellous tales, none the less true because marvellous, about the prehistoric past. Like the owl in the preface, they are not discouraged because the starting-point is beyond reach; and we, like the cat, should try to awaken our interest when evidences are presented to us that on first hearing sound like the wonderful tales of the Orient.

Thousands of years ago in our own land dwelt two races of people, the River Drift-men and the Cave-dwellers. The River Drift-man was a hunter of a very low order, possessing only the limited intelligence of the modern Australian native. This man supported life much in the same way we should expect a man to do, surrounded by similar conditions; but, on the other hand, the Cave-dweller showed a singular talent for representing the animals he hunted, and his sketches reveal to us the capacity he had for seeing the beauty and grace of natural objects. Were a visit to be paid to the British Museum, his handicraft, rude when compared to modern art, could be seen in the fragments beyond all cavil recording his primitive culture.

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