They all went over the bridge together;
The bridge was broken and they fell in,
'The devil go with all,' quoth Tom a Lin."
Another version, more particularly the Irish one, runs—
All went over the bridge together;
The bridge was loose, they all fell in,
'What a precious concern,' cried Bryan O'Lynn.
So he got a sheep's skin to make him a pair."
This rhyme is evidently much older than the Tudor age, and one is reminded of the time when cloth and woollen goods were not much used by the lower classes. The Tzigane of Hungary to-day wears his sheep-skin breeches, and hands them down to posterity, with a plentiful supply of quick-silver and grease to keep them soft and clean. "Bye baby bunting" and the little "hare skin" is the other nursery rhyme having a reference to skins of animals being used for clothing. But "Baby bunting" has no purpose to point to, unless indeed the habits of the Esquimaux are taken in account. In the list of nursery songs sung by children in Elizabeth's reign, the following extract from "The longer thou livest the more foole thou art" gives four:—
A fond woman to my mother;
As I war wont in her lappe to sit,
She taught me these and many other.
And 'My litle pretie Nightingale,'
'There dwelleth a Jolly Fisher here by the west,'
Also, 'I com to drink som of you Christmas ale.'
It doth me good my songs to render;
Such pretie thinges would soone be gon
If I should not sometime them remembre."
To get back again to the true nursery lyrics, one more marriage game of this period is given, entitled—
"WE'LL HAVE A WEDDING AT OUR HOUSE."
With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;
She could pipe nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,
The mouse hath married the bumble-bee.
Pipe, cat; dance, mouse;
We'll have a wedding at our house."
CHAPTER V.
CAT RHYMES.
The old saying of "A cat may look at the queen" is thus expressed in a dialogue between a ward nurse of Elizabeth's time and a truant tom on its return to the nursery.
No doubt the incident giving rise to this verse had to do with the terrible fright Queen Bess is supposed to have had on discovering a mouse in the folds of her dress—for it was she of virgin fame to whom pussy-cat paid the visit. It has been asked again and again, "Why are old maids so fond of cats?" and "Why are their lives so linked together?" Maybe it is to scare, as did the cat in the rhyme, "a little mouse from under her chair."
Pussy looked down, and she looked in.
What are you doing, my little men?
We're making some clothes for gentlemen.
Shall I come in to cut your threads?
No, kind sir, you'll bite off our heads."
One more rhyme of Queen Elizabeth's time begins—
Serve Queen Bess, our noble queen."
And if I don't hurt her she'll do me no harm;
I won't pull her tail, nor drive her away,
But pussy and I together will play."
In a basket full of coal-dust;
One cat said to the other,
'Su pu, pell mell—Queen Anne's dead!'
'Is she?' quoth Grimalkin, 'then I'll reign in her stead.'
Then up, up, up, they flew, up the chimney."
The cat's in the cupboard
And she can't C."
Who put her in? Little Tommy Thin.
Who pulled her out? Little Johnny Stout.
What a naughty boy was that
To drown poor pussy cat!"
Or—
Who never did any harm, but caught the mice in father's barn."
CAT TALE OF DICK WHITTINGTON.
This legend of Dick Whittington is of Eastern origin. The story of the poor boy whose ill-fortune was so strangely reversed by the performances of his cat and its kittens finds a parallel in a cat tale found in "Arlott's Italian Novels," published 1485. The Lord Mayor of London bearing the name of Richard Whittington was a knight's son, a citizen of London, and never poor. The possible explanation of the cat in the career of Whittington of London had reference to a coal-boat known as a "cat," and far more likely to make a fortune for the future Lord Mayor than a good mouser would be.
CHAPTER VI.
A CRADLE SONG OF THE FIRST CENTURY.
Many authorities pronounce this lullaby to be of the earliest Christian era. Some believe that in times of yore the Virgin herself sang it to the infant Jesus.
Thy mother sings to her firstborn;
Sleep, O boy, sleep,
Thy father cries out to his little child.
Thousands of praises we sing to thee,
A thousand thousand thousands.
Sleep, thou joy of thy mother;
Let a soothing, hushed lullaby
Come murmuring to thy heavenly ears.
Thousands of praises we sing to thee,
A thousand thousand thousands.
With roses I will cover thee,
With violet garlands I will entwine thee.
Thy bed shall be among the hyacinthus,
Thy cradle built up with the petals of white lilies.
Thousands of praises we sing to thee,
A thousand thousand thousands.
I will instantly call together the shepherds.
None are before them,
No mortal sings more holy songs.
Thousands of praises we sing to thee,
A thousand thousand thousands."
If aught be distinct in this early Christian lullaby, it is that old-time ideas of "stars on high," "the sky is full of sleep," and other similar figures of mythical word-pictures are wanting. A mother's sympathy and affection alone bind together the words of her song in illimitable praises—a thousand thousand thousands.
Milton says—
Hath laid her babe to rest."
What a bright sanctified glory the child King brought to his baby throne.
"Thee in all children, the eternal child. Thee to whom the wise men gave adoration, and the shepherds praise."
What countless hosts of child-bands are ever singing some dreamy lullaby of praise to their child King.
In the pastoral district of Vallauria, in the heart of the Ligurian Alps, within a day's journey from the orange groves of Mentone, a yearly festival takes place, when the children of the mountains sing a stanza recalling the Virgin's song—
"If thou wishest for music I will instantly call together the shepherds. None are before them."
Horns they play,
Thee, their King, to glorify,
Rest thee, my soul's delight."
No lyrics of the nursery have come down to us fashioned after the first-century song of the Virgin. The older types have survived, and in such an unvarying mould have they been cast that there is in each European country's song the same old pagan imagery obstinately repeating itself in spite of Christianity, so that the songs of the Christian Church became exclusively the hymns of her faithful people, the carols of her festivals, and in the Middle Ages the libretto of her Church mystery plays, setting forth her history and doctrines to the lower orders. If one were to remove the obstacles of idiom and grammar in the poetry of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, or even Russia, and expose the subject of the theme, a mere skeleton of past delusions would remain.
Long before modern European nations received this imagery of past credulities the poets of Greece and Rome had versified the same old-time beliefs. Before Rome was founded the Etruscan race, who flourished in what is now modern Tuscany, had the Books of the Tages fashioned in rhythmical mould, from which their traditions, ordinances, and religious teachings were drawn. They believed in genii as fervently as a Persian. Here is one Etruscan legend of the nursery, recalling
"How the wondrous boy-Tages sprang out of the soil just previously turned over by the plough in the fields of Tarquinii, and communicated to Lucamones the doctrines of divination, by sacrifice, by flight of birds, and by observation of the lightning, a son of genius and grandson of Jupiter."—Cic. de Divin. ii. 23.
It was the ancient tale of "Jack and the Beanstalk."
CHAPTER VII.
JACK RHYMES.
In the preceding chapter it was noted how the wondrous boy-Tages was believed in by the ancients. "Jack and the Beanstalk," our modern tale, though adapted to the present age, is the same legend, and known and told in their own way by the Zulus in South Africa and by the Redskin of North America, as well as to other isolated peoples. In these tales of primitive peoples the same wonderful miracle of the soil's fertility takes place, in the one case by the birth of the boy-Tages, in the other by the marvellous growth of the twisting beanstalks which in one night reach up—up—up to the land of the gods and giants. "Jack the Giant Killer," a similar legend but from a Celtic source, was known in France in the twelfth century, and at that period translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Both "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer" are found in the folk-lore tales of Scandinavia.
ANOTHER JACK OF THE NURSERY CLASSICS
sprang up into being after the wars of Parliament, when the pleasure-hating Puritan gained an ascendency in the land, and when the pastimes of all classes, but more especially those of the lower orders who had been so happy and contented under the Tudor sovereigns, suffered a miserable suspension. They who were in authority longed to change the robe of revel for the shroud. Not only were theatres and public gardens closed, but a war of bigotry was waged against May-poles, wakes, fairs, church music, fiddles, dancing, puppet shows, Whitsun ales—in short, everything wearing the attire of popular amusement and diversion. The rhyme recording Jack Horner's gloomy conduct was, in fact, a satire on Puritanical aversion to Christmas festivities.
His father's heart he made full glad, his mother loved him well.
A pretty boy of curious wit, all people spoke his praise,
And in a corner he would sit on Christmas Holy-days.
When friends they did together meet to pass away the time,
Why, little Jack, he sure would eat his Christmas pie in rhyme,
And say, 'Jack Horner, in the corner, eats good Christmas pie,
And with his thumb pulls out a plum,
Saying, What a good boy am I.'"
The copy of the history of Jack Horner, containing his witty pranks and the tricks he played upon people from his youth to old age, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.
There are a number of men and women who recall a time when the rhymes of "Jack Horner" and "Jack the Giant Killer" appeared finer than anything in Shakespeare; but this much may be said for "Jack Horner," the cavalier's song of derision at the straight-laced Puritan, that it soon lost its political signification, gradually becoming used as a mark of respect.
When he to age was come,
As being only fourteen inches high,
A giant to Tom Thumb."
CHAPTER VIII.
RIDDLE-MAKING.
Riddle-making is not left alone by the purveyors of nursery yarns, though belonging to the mythologic state of thought. The Hindu calls the sun seven-horsed; so the German riddle asks—
The Greek riddle of the two sisters—Day and Night. Another one given by Diog. Lært. i. 91, Athenagoras x. 451, runs—
Maidens thirty, whose twain form is parted asunder,
White to behold on the one side, black to behold on the other,
All immortal in being, all doomed to dwindle and perish."[H]
An interesting English rhyme says—
A very long tail which she let fly,
Every time she went through a gap
She left a bit of her tail in the trap."
The king cannot reach, nor yet the queen,
Nor can Old Noll, whose power's so great,
Tell me this riddle while I count eight."
This nursery rhyme's date is fixed by the reference to Old Noll, the Lord Protector.
And all the king's horses can't pull it up."
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Three score men, and three score more,
Cannot make Humpty Dumpty as before again."
Or—
Couldn't put Humpty together again."
Plutarch says of Homer that he died of chagrin, being unable to solve a riddle.
The Phœnix myth, once believed in by the Egyptian priests, is now, and had even so long ago as in Herodotus' time, degenerated into a mere child-story of a bird, who lived, and died, and rose again from its own ashes. As a relic of a mysterious faith, this fabulous bird has come down to us with diminished glory each century. Old Herodotus, the father of history, tells us that he saw it once—not the bird itself, but a painting of it—at Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, in Egypt. Even this old Greek historian could not quite believe the current story in his day concerning this bird; that it was supposed to revisit the earth after a five-hundred-year sojourn in the land of gods was to him, at least, a little strange. Pliny, the Roman, likewise gives a description of it. "I have been told," he writes, "it was as big as an eagle, yellow in colour, glittering as gold about the neck, with a body-plumage of deep red-purple. Its tail is sky-blue, with some of the pennæ of a light rose colour. The head is adorned with a crest and pinnacle beautiful to the sight."
Another ancient retells the story somewhat different to both the Greek and Roman historians. Thus runs the Indian version. Bear in mind, however, before reading it, that, like the Second Stone Age people, it was the habit of many races in India to cremate their dead:—
"A high funeral pyre is erected of dry wood, on which the body of the dead is laid, and in course of time after igniting the faggots the corpse is consumed. While this cineration is going on vultures and carrion fowl not infrequently pounce down upon the body, and tear away pieces of flesh from the ghastly, smoking corpse. These charred parts of the body they carry away to their nests to feast upon at leisure. But oftentimes dire results follow; the home of sun-dried sticks and litter ignites, and the bird is seen by some of the superstitious peasantry to rise up out of fire and smoke and disappear."
Then the Phœnix fable comes to mind, "It is the sun-god; he has thrown fire and consumed the nest, and the old bird," and they hastily conclude that the bird they just now beheld flying away is a new one, and has, in fact, arisen out of the ashes they witnessed falling from the branches of the tall tree. The Phœnix in truth!
The German child's rhyme, given by Grimm brothers, of
is not out of place here. It evidences a state of mythologic thought.
Come, sit on my finger, so happy and gay.
Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home,
Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam.
Then ladybird! ladybird! fly away home.
Hark! hark! to thy children bewailing."
Yearly, as these harvest bugs, with their crimson or golden-coloured shields, appear in our country lanes, the village youngsters delight in capturing them, and play a game similar to the German child's. They sing—
Your house is on fire, your children will roam,
Excepting the youngest, and her name is Ann,
And she has crept under the dripping-pan."
FOOTNOTES:
παῖδες ἔασι τριήκοντ' ἄνδιχα εἶδος ἔχουσαι·
Ἡι μὲν λευκαὶ ἔασιν ἰδειν· ἧ δ' αὖτε μέλαιναι
Ἀθάνατοι δέ τ' ἐοῦσαι αποφθίνουσιν ἅπασαι."
CHAPTER IX.
NURSERY CHARMS.
To charm away the hiccup one must repeat these four lines thrice in one breath, and a cure will be certain—
For twisting a twist three twists he must twist;
But if one of the twists untwists from the twist,
The twist untwisting untwists all the twist."
AN ESSEX CHARM FOR A CHURN, 1650 A.D.
Peter stands at the gate
Waiting for his buttered cake;
Come, butter, come."
The late Sir Humphry Davy is said to have learnt this cure for cramp when a boy—
The devil has tied a knot in my leg;
Crosses three † † † we make to ease us,
Two for the robbers and one for Jesus."
A CHARM AGAINST GHOSTS.
There are four angels there.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
God bless the bed that I lay on."
The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John rhymes were well known in Essex in Elizabeth's time. Ady, in his "Candle after dark," 1655, mentions an old woman he knew, who had lived from Queen Mary's time, and who had been taught by the priests in those days many Popish charms. The old woman, amongst other rhymes, repeated—
The bed be blest that I lay on."
This was to be repeated yearly, thrice on Twelfth Night, and it would act as a charm until the following year against evil spirits.
In 1601 a charm in general esteem against lightning was a laurel leaf.
"I'll tie a garland here about his head,
'Twill keep my boy from lightning."
Even Tiberius Cæsar wore a chaplet of laurel leaves about his neck. Pliny reported that "laurel leaves were never blasted by lightning."
MONEY RHYMES.
And married another a week before Easter."
A pocket full of rye;
Four-and-twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
The birds began to sing,
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the king?
Counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and honey.
Hanging out the clothes,
Then came a little blackbird
And snapped off her nose."
In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Sir Toby alludes to the "Sing a Song a Sixpence," Act II., Sc. 3:—
In Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca it is also quoted.
He kiss'd a maid and gave her a groat;
The groat was cracked and would not go,
Ah, old man, d'ye serve me so?"
Why must he have but a penny a day?
Because he can work no faster."
If your daughters do not like them give them to your sons;
But if you should have none of these pretty little elves
You cannot do much better if you eat them all yourselves."
Written about 1608:—
Malt's come down, malt's come down from an old angel to a French crown.
The greatest drunkards in the town are very, very glad that malt's come down."
In New York the children have a common saying when making a swop or change of one toy for another, and no bargain is supposed to be concluded between boys and girls unless they interlock fingers—the little finger on the right hand—and repeat the following doggerel:—
Whoever tells a lie
Will sink down to the bad place,
And never rise up again."
NUMERICAL NURSERY RHYME.
Three, four, shut the door;
Five, six, pick up sticks;
Seven, eight, lay them straight;
Nine, ten, a good fat hen;
Eleven, twelve, who will delve?
Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting;
Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen;
Seventeen, eighteen, maids a-waiting;
Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty."
BAKER'S MAN.
Yes, I will, master, as fast as I can.
Prick it and prick it, and mark it with B,
And toss it in the oven for baby and me."
CHAPTER X.
SCRAPS.
Thy mother a lady so lovely and bright.
The hills and the dales and the towers which you see,
They all shall belong, my dear baby, to thee."
My lady's on her death-bed, with eating half a pumpkin."
And who gave thee this jolly red nose?
Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves,
And they gave me this jolly red nose."
Story-telling in the Reformation period was so prevalent that the wonderful tales were satirised in the following rhyme, dated 1588:—
I saw a hare chase a hound. Fie, man, fie.
Twenty miles above the ground. Fie, man, fie.
Who's the fool now?"
And a snail bite a dog!
I saw a mouse catch a cat,
And a cheese eat a rat. Fie, man, fie.
Who's the fool now?"
A Henry VIII. rhyme:—
She is a jolly one, and as gentle as can be;
With a beck she comes anon,
With a wink and she is gone."
Her father was a miller;
He tossed a dumpling at her head,
And swore that he would kill her."
Take him by the left leg and throw him downstairs."
Half a pound of treacle,
Stir it up and make it nice,
Pop goes the weasel."
In 1754 mothers used to say to their children—
Do what you're bid,
Shut the door after you,
Never be chid."
A GAME.
Two pudding ends would choke a dog."
"As I was going down Sandy Lane I met a man who had seven wives; each wife had a bag, each bag held a cat, each cat a kit. Now riddle-me-ree, how many were going down Sandy Lane?"
Answer—One going down; the others were going up.
She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread,
And whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed."
A round roll Robert Rowley rolled round;
Round rolled the round roll Robert Rowley rolled round."