The Project Gutenberg eBook ofChildren's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's StoriesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's StoriesAuthor: Robert FordRelease date: January 13, 2008 [eBook #24271]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Huub Bakker, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN'S RHYMES, CHILDREN'S GAMES, CHILDREN'S SONGS, CHILDREN'S STORIES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's StoriesAuthor: Robert FordRelease date: January 13, 2008 [eBook #24271]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Huub Bakker, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Title: Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories
Author: Robert Ford
Author: Robert Ford
Release date: January 13, 2008 [eBook #24271]
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Huub Bakker, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN'S RHYMES, CHILDREN'S GAMES, CHILDREN'S SONGS, CHILDREN'S STORIES ***
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Huub Bakker,and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team(http://www.pgdp.net)
Frontispiece.JINGO-RING.DRAWN BY KATE T. HILL.
By ROBERT FORDAuthor of "Thistledown," and Editor of "Ballads of Bairnhood," "Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland" Etc., etc.
Author of "Thistledown," and Editor of "Ballads of Bairnhood," "Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland" Etc., etc.
"Auld rhymes and auld chimesGar us think on auld times"—Proverb
"Auld rhymes and auld chimesGar us think on auld times"
—Proverb
PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNERPublisher to the late Queen Victoria: 1904
In offering to the public this collection of Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, and Children's Stories—the multitudinous items of which, or such, at least, as were not living in my own memory, have been gathered with patient industry, albeit with much genuine delight, from wide and varied sources—I anticipate for the work a hearty and general welcome, alike from old and young. It is the first really sincere effort to collect in anything like ample and exclusive fashion thenatural literatureof the children of Scotland, and meets what has long appealed to me as decidedly a felt want. The earlier pages are occupied with a commentary, textually illustrated, on the generally puerile, but regularly fascinating Rhymes of the Nursery, the vitality and universal use of which have been at once the wonder and the puzzle of the ages. This is followed in turn by a chapter on Counting-out Rhymes, with numerous examples, home and foreign; which is succeeded, appropriately, by a section of the work embracing description of all the well-known out-door and in-door Rhyme-Games—in each case the Rhyme being given, the action being portrayed. The remaining contents the title may be left to suggest. I mayonly add that the Stories—including "Blue Beard," and "Jack the Giant Killer," and their fellow-narratives—ten in all—are printedverbatimfrom the old chapbooks once so common in the country, but now so rare as to be almost unobtainable.
Essentially a book about children and their picturesque and innocent, though often apparently meaningless, frolics, by the young in the land, I am assured, it will be received with open arms. From the "children of larger growth"—those who were once young and have delight in remembering the fact—the welcome, if less boisterous, should be not less sincere. Commend to me on all occasions the man or woman who, "with lyart haffets thin and bare," can sing with the poet—
"Och hey! gin I were young again,Ochone! gin I were young again;For chasin' bumbees owre the plainIs just an auld sang sung again."
ROBERT FORD.
287Onslow Drive,Dennistoun,Glasgow.
Writing on the subject of nursery rhymes more than half a century ago, the late Dr. Robert Chambers expressed regret because, as he said, "Nothing had of late been revolutionised so much as the nursery." But harking back on the period of his own childhood, he was able to say, with a feeling of satisfaction, that the young mind was then "cradled amidst the simplicities of the uninstructed intellect; andshewas held to be the best nurse who had the most copious supply of song, and tale, and drollery, at all times ready to soothe and amuse her young charges. There were, it is true, some disadvantages in the system; for sometimes superstitious terrors were implanted, and little pains were taken to distinguish between what tended to foster the evil and what tended to elicit the better feelings of infantile nature. Yet the ideas which presided over the scene," he continues, "and rung through it all the day in light gabble and jocund song, were simple, often beautiful ideas, generally well expressed, and unquestionably suitable to the capacities of children.... There was no philosophy about these gentle dames; but there was generally endless kindness, and a wonderful power of keeping their little flock in good humour. It never occurred to them that children were anything but children—'Bairns are just bairns,' my old nurse wouldsay—and they never once thought of beginning to make them men and women while still little more than able to speak." They did not; and, in the common homes of Scotland, they do not to this hour. The self-same rhymes and drollery which amused Dr. Chambers as a child are amusing and engaging the minds and exercising the faculties of children over all the land even now. I question if there is a child anywhere north of the Tweed who has not been entertained by
Brow, brow, brinkie,Ee, ee, winkie,Nose, nose, nebbie,Cheek, cheek, cherrie,Mou, mou, merry,Chin, chin, chuckie,Curry-wurry! Curry-wurry! etc.
Or the briefer formula, referring only to the brow, the eye, the nose, and the mouth, which runs:—
Chap at the door,Keek in,Lift the sneck,Walk in.
And it was only the other evening that I saw a father with his infant son on his knee, having a little hand spread out, and entertaining its owner by travelling from thumb to little finger, and repeating the old catch:—
This is the man that broke the barn,This is the man that stole the corn,This is the man that ran awa',This is the man that tell't a',And puir Pirly Winkie paid for a', paid for a'.
As well as its fellow-rhyme:—
This little pig went to the market,This little pig stayed at home;This little pig got roast beef,This little pig got none;This little pig cried, Squeak! squeak!I can't find my way home.
Than the nonsense rhymes and capers that have delighted the nursery life of Scotland for many generations, none, of course, could be more delectable—none more suitable. While charming the sense, they have awakened imagination and developed poetic fancy in thousands who otherwise might have blundered into old age proving stolid and uninteresting men and women. They are, for this reason, part and parcel of every properly-balanced life, and the healthy and happy mind can never let them go.
Johnny Smith, my fallow fine,Can you shoe this horse o' mine?Yes, indeed, and that I can,Just as weel as ony man.Ca' a nail into the tae,To gar the pownie climb the brae;Ca' a nail into the heel,To gar the pownie trot weel;There's a nail, and there's a brod,There's a pownie weel shod,Weel shod, weel shod, weel shod pownie.
What pleasing recollections of his own early childhood many a father has had when, sitting with his child on his knee, he has demonstrated and chanted that rude rhyme by the fireside o' nights far, as oftenhas been the case, from the scene where he learned it! To know such is to realise one, at least, of the various reasons why the old delight in the frolics of the young.
Hush-a-by baby on the tree top,When the wind blows the cradle will rock;When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,And down will come cradle and baby and all.
This is a rhyme which "every child has joyed to hear." Its origin, as told in the records of the Boston (U.S.) Historical Society, is not more curious than beautiful and significant. "Shortly after our forefathers landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts (I am quoting), a party were out in the fields where the Indian women were picking strawberries. Several of the women, or squaws as they were called, had papooses—that is babies—and, having no cradle, they had them tied up in Indian fashion and hung from the limbs of the surrounding trees. Sure enough, when the wind blew these cradles would rock! A young man of the party observing this, pulled off a piece of bark and wrote off the above words, which is believed to be the first poetry written in America." Several have curious histories.
Little Jack HornerSat in a cornerEating his Christmas pie;He put in his thumbAnd pulled out a plum,And said, What a good boy am I!
Master Horner, it appears, was not a myth, but a real personage. Tradition tells that when Henry VIII. suppressed the monasteries, and drove the poor old monks from their nests, the title-deeds of the Abbey ofMells, including the sumptuous grange built by Abbot Bellwood, were demanded by the Commissioners. The Abbot of Glastonbury determined instead that he would send them to London; and, as the documents were very valuable, and the road was infested by thieves, to get them to the metropolis safely he ordered a pie to be made, as fine as ever smoked on a refectory table, inside of which the precious documents were placed, and this dainty he entrusted to a lad named Horner to carry up to London and deliver into the hands of the party for whom it was intended. But the journey was long, the day was cold, the boy was hungry, the pie was tempting, and the chances of detection, the youth presumed, were small. So he broke the crust of the pie, and behold the parchment! He pulled it forth innocently enough, wondering by what chance it could have reached there, and arrived in town. The parcel was delivered, but the title-deeds of Mells Abbey estate were missing. Jack had them in his pocket, and—now learning their value—he kept them there. These were the juiciest plums in the pie. Great was the rage of the Commissioners, heavy the vengeance they dealt out to the monks. But Jack kept his secret and the documents, and when peaceful times were restored he claimed the estates and received them. So goes the story; and it may be true. But, then, in the light of its truth, whether Master Horner deserved the title of "good boy" bestowed on him by the rhyme will be more than doubtful.
We all know the lines,
Mary had a little lamb,Its fleece was white as snow;And everywhere that Mary went,The lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day,It was against the rule,And made the children laugh and play,To see a lamb at school.
These verses were founded, it appears, on an actual circumstance, and the heroine Mary may be still living. Less than eighty years ago she was a little girl, the daughter of a farmer in Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S. One spring her father brought a feeble lamb into the house, and Mary adopted it as her especial pet. It became so fond of her that it would follow her everywhere. One day it followed her to the village school, and, not knowing well what to do with it there, the girl put it under her desk and covered it over with her shawl. There it stayed until Mary was called up with her class to the teacher's desk to say her lesson; but then the lamb went quietly after her, and the whole school burst out laughing. Soon after, John Rollstone, a fellow-student with Mary, wrote a little rhyme commemorating the incident, and the verses went rapidly from lip to lip, giving the greatest delight to all. The lamb grew up to be a sheep, and lived many years; and when it died Mary grieved so much that her mother took some of its wool, which was "white as snow," and knitted for her a pair of stockings to wear in remembrance of her pet. Some years after, Mrs. Sarah Hall composed additional verses to those of John Rollstone, making the complete rhyme as we know it.[A]Marytook such good care of the stockings made from her lamb's fleece that when she was a grown-up woman she was able to give one of them to a church bazaar in Boston. As soon as it became known that the stocking was from the fleece of "Mary's little lamb," every one wanted a piece of it. So the stocking was unravelled, and the yarn cut into short pieces. Each piece was fastened to a card on which Mary wrote her full name, and those cards sold so well that they brought the handsome sum of £28 to the Old South Church in Boston.
[A]The following are the added lines referred to:—And so the teacher turned him out,But still he lingered near,And waited patiently aboutTill Mary did appear.And then he ran to her, and laidHis head upon her arm.As if he said, "I'm not afraid,You'll shield me from all harm.""What makes the lamb love Mary so?"The eager children cry."Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"The teacher did reply.
[A]The following are the added lines referred to:—
And so the teacher turned him out,But still he lingered near,And waited patiently aboutTill Mary did appear.
And then he ran to her, and laidHis head upon her arm.As if he said, "I'm not afraid,You'll shield me from all harm."
"What makes the lamb love Mary so?"The eager children cry."Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"The teacher did reply.
Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;Not all the King's horses, nor all the King's men,Could set Humpty-Dumpty up again.
Attempts have been made to show how that was suggested by the fall of a bold bad baron who lived in the days of King John; but every child more than ten years old knows that the lines present a conundrum, the answer to which is—an egg. And yet, were it no conundrum, but only a nonsense rhyme, its fascination for the budding intellect would be no less. It is enough when, with the jingle of rhyme, the imagination, is tickled, as in—
Hey diddle dumplin' my son John,Went to his bed with his trowsers on;One shoe off and the other shoe on,Hey diddle dumplin', my son John;
or—
Cripple Dick upon a stick,And Sandy on a soo,Ride away to GallowayTo buy a pund o' woo';
or yet again in—
Sing a sang o' saxpence,A baggie fu' o' rye,Four-and-twenty blackbirds,Bakit in a pie.When the pie was openedThe birds began to sing;And wasna that a dainty dishTo set before the King?
The King was in his counting-houseCounting out his money,The Queen was in the parlourEating bread and honey,The maid was in the gardenHanging out the clothes,When by came a blackbirdAnd snapped aff her nose.
For such supreme nonsense no historical origin need be sought, surely. Yet part of the latter has been at least applied to a historical personage in a way that is worth recalling. Dr. H. J. Pye, who was created Poet Laureate in succession to Thomas Warton, in 1790, was,as a poet, regularly made fun of. In hisNew Year Odesthere were perpetual references to the coming spring: and, in the dearth of more important topics, each tree and field-flower were described: and the lark, and every other bird that could be brought into rhyme, were sure to appear; and his poetical and patrioticolla podridaultimately provoked the adaptation:—
When the Pye was opened,The birds began to sing,And was not that a dainty dish,To set before a king?
But to take the rhymes only by themselves. Action rhymes, by reason of their practical drollery, never fail to amuse. And among the very earliest practised is the following. The nurse, with the child on her knee, takes a little foot in either hand, and, making them go merrily up and down, she sings:—
This is Willie Walker, and that's Tam Sim,He ca'd him to a feast, and he ca'd him;He sticket him on the spit, and he sticket him;And he owre him, and he owre him,And he owre him, and he owre him, etc.
Then, to keep up the diversion, may follow in the same manner:—
Twa little doggies gaed to the mill,This way and that way, and this way and that way;They took a lick out o' this wife's poke,And a lick they took out o' that wife's poke,And a loup in the lade, and a dip in the dam,And hame they cam' wallopin', wallopin', wallopin', etc.
Or:—
Feetikin, feetikin,When will ye gang?When the nights turn short,And the days turn lang,I'll toddle and gang, toddle and gang.
Should more active entertainment be demanded, the child will be set bold upright on one knee, and, suiting the action to the line, the rhyme will be:—
This is the way the ladies ride,Jimp and sma' jimp and sma';This is the way the gentlemen ride,Trotting a', trotting a';This is the way the cadgers ride,Creels and a'! creels and a'!!Creels and a'!!!
For variety's sake, on an easier swing, may follow:—
A' the nicht owre and owre,And a' the nicht owre again;A' the nicht owre and owreThe peacock followed the hen.
The hen's a hungry beast,The cock is hollow within;But there's nae deceit in a puddin',A pie's a dainty thing.
A' the nicht owre and owre.—Da Capo.
Or, yet more to engage the intellect may come:—
Poussie, poussie, baudrons,Whaur ha'e ye been?I've been to LondonSeeing the Queen.
Poussie, poussie, baudrons,What gat ye there?I gat a good fat mousikie,Rinning up a stair.
Poussie, poussie, baudrons,What did ye wi't?I put it in my meal-pokeTo eat it wi' my bread.
Or:—
Hushie-ba, birdie beeton,Your mammie's gane to Seaton,For to buy a lammie's skinTo row your bonnie boukie in.
And:—
Bye baby, buntin',Daddie's gane a-huntin':—Mammie's gane to buy a skin,To row the baby buntin' in.
East Coast mothers sing:—
Ding dang, bell rang,Cattie's in the well, man.Fa' dang her in, man?Jean and Sandy Din, man.Fa' took her out, man?Me and Willie Cout, man.A' them that kent herWhen she was alive,Come to the burialieBetween four and five.
Again:—
Eezy ozy moolin's o' bread,Kens na whaur to lay her head,Atween the Kirkgate and the CrossThere stands a bonnie white horse,It can gallop, it can trot,It can carry the mustard-pot.
And yet again:—
Willie Warstle, auld Carle,Dottered, dune, and doited bodie,Feeds his weans on calfs' lugs,Sowps o' brose, and draps o' crowdie.
In Arbroath and district, mothers, indicating the various parts of the child's anatomy as they proceed, sing:—
Brow o' knowledge,Eye o' life,Scent bottle,Penknife.Cheek cherry,Neck o' grace,Chin o' pluck—That's your face.Shoulder o' mutton,Breast o' fat,Vinegar-bottle,Mustard-pot—That's my laddie.
Touching severally the various buttons on the child's dress during its repetition, this sort of fortune-telling rhyme is common:—
A laird, a lord,A rich man, a thief,A tailor, a drummer,A stealer o' beef.
Or supposing for the nonce that the child is a piece of cooper-work, requiring to be mended, the following, accompanied by the supposed process, may be sung:—
Donald Cooper, Carle, quo' she,Can ye gird my coggie?Couthie Carline, that I can,As weel as ony bodie.There's ane about the mou' o't,And ane about the body o't,And ane about the leggen o't,And that's a girded coggie!
The next is lilted as an accompaniment to a pretended game of thumps:—
Bontin's manTo the town ran;He coffed and sold,And a penny down told;The kirk was ane, and the choir was twa,And a great muckle thump doon aboon a',Doon aboon a', doon aboon a'.
The following (as Dr. Chambers remarks) explains its own theatrical character:—
I got a little manikin, I set him on my thoomiken;I saddled him, I bridled him, I sent him to the tooniken:I coffed a pair o' garters to tie his little hosiken;I coffed a pocket-napkin to dight his little nosiken;I sent him to the garden to fetch a pund o' sageAnd found him in the kitchen-neuk kissing little Madge.