Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

In Swabia they sing: —

Sonnevögele flieg aus,Flieg in meiner Ahne Haus,Bring mir Aepfel und Bire;Komm bald wieder.(Me., p. 24.)

"Sunbird, fly away, fly to my ancestress' house; bring me apples and pears; come back soon."

This request to the ladybird to bring down gifts from heaven has a parallel in our rhyme which entreats it to "carry up ten pounds, and bring down eleven."

According to another of our rhymes the one who is safe at home is Tom, who lies under the grindelstone, that is the grindstone. The analysis of the stories that are told of Tom shows that he is related to the northern god Thor, and that the grindstone corresponds to Thor's hammer. Moreover, in Scandinavian folk-lore there is a house-sprite called Tommelgubbe, literally Tom-boy, who took offence if work was done on a Thursday, the day sanctified to the god Thor. The hammer of Thor was called Mjölnir, that is pounder, and with it the god was busy in summertime in heaven, pounding ice into snow.

In an old story-book called Tom Hickathrift, otherwise Hickifric,44 traits are preserved in connection with Tom, which recall the peculiarities of the god Thor. Tom dwelt with his mother, who slept on straw; there was no father. Thor had no father; his mother was designated as Godmor. Tom ate hugely, Thor did the same. Tom flung his hammer into the river, Thor measured distance by throwing his hammer. Tom carted beer – a trait that recalls Thor's fits of drunkenness. On one occasion Tom made himself a weapon by sticking an axle-tree into a waggon-wheel, which suggests that Thor's hammer was a flat stone mace. Likewise Tom, having broken his club, "seized upon a lusty raw-boned miller," and used him as a weapon. Can we hesitate from accepting that this "miller" in a confused manner recalls the Mjölnir– that is the hammer – of the northern god Thor?

The analysis of the ladybird rhymes takes us even farther afield. In Saxony they sing: —

Flieg, Käfer, flieg, dein Vater ist im Krieg,Deine Mutter ist in den Stiefel gekroche,Hat das linke Bein gebroche.(M., p. 347.)

"Fly, chafer, fly, father has gone to war, mother has crept into the shoe, she has broken her left leg."

The mother with the broken leg of this rhyme recalls the limping mother of the Babyland game, and the person in Drop Handkerchief, who was bitten. The expression of "creeping into a shoe" yields a clue to the nature of the woman of one of our rhymes who lived in a shoe, and was oppressed by the number of her children. In one form this rhyme, cited above in connection with the tale of Mother Hubbard, describes how the children were to all appearance dead, but were quickened into life. This conception is allied to the quickening into life of the babes in the Babyland game. In its earliest printed form the rhyme stands as follows: —

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,She had so many children she didn't know what to do;She gave them some broth without any bread,She whipped all their bums and sent them to bed.(c. 1783, p. 52.)

Those of our ladybird rhymes which call on the insect in matters of love divination have their closest parallels in Scandinavia. In Sweden they sing: —

Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga,Flyg öster, flyg vester,Flyg dit der bor din älskede.(1849, p. 5.)

"Fly, Our Lady's keybearer! fly east, fly west, fly where thy lover dwells."

Of the rhymes of this class, one introduces the term Golloway. This may be intended for Yellow Way, the course of the sun in daytime, as distinct from the Milky Way, the course of the stars at night.

Another rhyme begins with the call Bishop, bishop, which has puzzled various commentators. I venture to suggest that the word be read Beeship, and that it indicates the boat that sailed across heaven bearing the souls of the dead, who were figured as bees. For the spirits of those who passed away, viewed under one aspect, were bees, and the ship that conveyed the dead in Norsk saga was actually designated as the Býskip. Mannhardt, in illustration, cites a line which the skald Egil Skallagrimssonr, whose date is between 902 and 980, sang on his son that had been drowned: —

Byrr es býskips i boe kominn kvanar son.

"In the beeship there has gone the son of my wife."

Our commentators inaccurately translate the expression as "City of the Hive" (C. P., I, 546).

According to a fancy of the Welsh bards, Britain was peopled with bees before the arrival of man, and this was held to account for its name, the "Isle of Honey."

A Prussian ladybird rhyme also mentions the boat that sailed across heaven. In Dantzig they sing: —

Herrgotspferdchen, fliege weg,Dein Häuschen brennt, dein Kähnchen schwimmt,Deine Kinder schreien nach Butterbrod;Herrgotspferdchen, fliege weg.(M., 349.)

"God Almighty's little horse, fly away, thy house is on fire, thy boat is afloat, thy children cry for bread and butter."

From an early period the sun was supposed to be conveyed in a boat, and boats were associated with divinities half the world over. Tacitus was acquainted with the boat of the goddess Isis that was conveyed about in Alexandria, and he described the boat that was taken about in procession by the heathen Germans in their cult of Hertha, as the boat of Isis (Gr., p. 214). The sun-boat of Ra in Egypt conveyed the dead to heaven. So did the golden ship of Odin in Scandinavia, which conveyed the bodies of the fallen warriors to Valhalla. The remembrance of this sun-boat probably gave rise to the story how Ikaros invented sails. It may linger still in the "beeship" of our rhymes, and in the "Kähnchen" of the corresponding German ladybird rhyme.

CHAPTER X

RIDDLE-RHYMES

AMONG other rhymes which date some way back in history are those which may fitly be called riddle-rhymes. Some of these have close parallels in the nursery lore of other countries. The most interesting example of this class is the rhyme on Humpty-Dumpty which deals with the egg. The egg from the earliest times formed an enigma in itself, and was looked upon as representing the origin of life. Aristophanes knew of the great bird that laid the world-egg. According to Kalevala, the Finnish epic, the world-egg fell and broke. Its upper part became the vault of heaven, its lower part the earth. The yolk formed the sun, the white the moon, and the fragments of the shell became the stars in heaven. Reminiscences of this idea of a world-egg linger in the Senchus Mor of Ireland and in the Volospa of Norse saga. In Tibet the holy Budh is represented holding in his hand a broken egg-shell, on the edge of which a diminutive human being is sometimes represented sitting. These world-wide conceptions account for the existence of numerous riddles that are current about the egg.

The rhyme on Humpty-Dumpty among us is current in three variations: —

Humpty-Dumpty sate on a wall,Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;Threescore men and threescore moreCannot place Humpty-Dumpty as he was before.(1810, p. 36.)Humpty-Dumpty sate on a wall,Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;All the king's soldiers and all the king's menCannot set Humpty-Dumpty up again.(1842, p. 113.)Humpty-Dumpty lay in a beckWith all his sinews around his neck;Forty doctors and forty wightsCouldn't put Humpty-Dumpty to rights.(1846, p. 209.)

Many parallels of this rhyme were collected from different parts of Europe by Mannhardt. In these Humpty-Dumpty appears under various names. They include Hümpelken-Pümpelken, Rüntzelken-Püntzelken, Wirgele-Wargele, Gigele-Gagele, and Etje-Papetje in different parts of Germany, and Lille-Trille and Lille Bulle in Scandinavia. The closest parallel of our rhyme hails from Saxony, and stands as follows: —

Hümpelken-Pümpelken sat up de Bank,Hümpelken-Pümpelken fël von de Bank;Do is kën Docter in EngellandDe Hümpelken-Pümpelken kurere kann.(M., p. 416.)45

"H. – P. sat on a bench, H. – P. fell from the bench; there is no doctor in Engelland who can restore H. – P."

In Switzerland the rhyme of Humpty-Dumpty is told of Annebadadeli. The usual answer is an egg, but sometimes it is an icicle or a feeding-bottle.

In Scandinavia they say: —

Lille Bulle trilla' ner a skulle;Ingen man i detta lan'Lille Bulle laga kan.(1849, p. 9.)

"Little B. fell from the shelf, no man in the whole land can restore little B."

This has a further parallel in France in a rhyme which reproduces the German expression Engelland regardless of its intrinsic meaning: —

Boule, boule su l'keyere,Boule, boule par terre.Y n'a nuz homme en AngleterrePou l'erfaire.46

"B. b. on the bench, B. b. on the ground. There is no man in England who can restore him."

The forty doctors of our rhyme who figure also as twice threescore men, reappear in the German rhyme as "no doctor in Engelland," as "no man in all the land" in the Scandinavian rhyme, and as "no man in England" literally translated, of the French version.

In one version of our rhyme those who are powerless to restore what is broken are described as "all the king's soldiers and all the king's men." This expression is also used in the riddle-rhymes on Smoke and on the Well, which are found in our own and in foreign nursery collections.

As round as an apple, as deep as a cup,And all the king's horses cannot pull it up.(The Well, 1846, p. 75.)As high as a castle, as weak as a wastle,And all the king's soldiers cannot pull it down.(Smoke, 1849, p. 144.)

In Swabia they say: —

Es ist etwas in meinem Haus,Es ziehen es hundert tausend Gäule nicht naus.(Me., p. 79.)

"There is something in my house, not a hundred thousand horses can pull it out."

The answer is "Smoke." In France they say: —

Qu'est-ce-qui est rond comme un dé,Et que des chevaux ne peuvent porter.47

"What is as round as a thimble, and horses cannot pull it?"

The answer is "A well." Possibly the "king" of these rhymes stands for the sun as the representative of power, whose horses and men are alike powerless.

The egg, which in these rhymes is designated by fanciful names, in other riddle-rhymes current abroad is described as a cask containing two kinds of beer. A riddle was put by the god Wodan in the character of a wayfarer to King Heidrek, and stood as follows: —

"Blond – haired brides, bondswomen both, carried ale to the barn; the casks were not turned with hands nor forged by hammers; she that made it strutted about outside the isle." The answer is "Eider-ducks' eggs" (C. P., I, 89).

The egg is also likened to a cask containing beer in a short riddle-rhyme which is current from Lapland to Hungary. In the Faroe Islands it takes this form: "Bolli fell from the ledge, all its hoops fell off. There is no man in the East, there is no man in the West, who can restore it" (M., p. 417). In Prussia they say: —

Kommt ein Tonn aus Engelland,Ohne Boden, ohne Band;Ist zweierleai Bier drin.(Sim., p. 287.)

"A cask comes from Engelland, without bottom, without band; it contains two kinds of beer."

Among ourselves there is no riddle-rhyme, as far as I know, which describes the egg as a cask containing beer. But in the seventeenth century the word Humpty-Dumpty was used to designate a drink which consisted of ale boiled in brandy,48 and this conception obviously hangs together with the two kinds of beer of the foreign riddle-rhymes on the egg.

Other riddle-rhymes current among ourselves or abroad describe the egg as a house or a castle. The following one describes it as an enigma in itself: —

As I was going o'er London BridgeI saw something under a hedge;'Twas neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor bone,And yet in three weeks it runned alone.(1846, p. 213.)

Girls in America play a game called Humpty-Dumpty. They sit on the ground with their skirts tightly gathered around them so as to enclose the feet. The leader begins some rhyme, all join in, and at a certain word previously agreed upon, all throw themselves backwards, keeping their skirts tightly grasped. The object is to recover the former position without letting go the skirt (N., p. 132).

Possibly the game is older than the riddle-rhymes, for these rhymes describe Humpty-Dumpty as sitting on a wall, or a bank, or a ledge, or as lying in a beck, which for an actual egg are impossible situations. They are intelligible on the assumption that the sport is older than the rhyme, and that the rhyme describes human beings who are personating eggs.

The name Humpty-Dumpty itself is one of the large class of rhyming compounds which are formed by the varied reduplication of the same word. Perhaps they originally conveyed a definite meaning. The word Humpty-Dumpty is allied to hump and to dump, words which express roundness and shortness. Another name of the kind is Hoddy-Doddy, which occurs in the following riddle-rhyme: —

Hoddy-Doddy with a round, black body;Three legs and a wooden hat, what is that?(1849, p. 142.)

The answer is "An iron pot."49 The word Hoddy-Doddy in the sixteenth century was directly used to express "a short and dumpy person" (1553). It was also applied to a "hen-pecked man" (1598).50 The meaning of shortness and roundness is expressed also by the name of the foreign equivalents of Humpty-Dumpty. The German Hümpelken-Pümpelken, and probably Lille Bulle of Scandinavia convey the same idea. On the other hand, the names Wirgele-Wargele and Gigele-Gagele suggest instability. The Danish Lille Trille is allied to lille trölle, little troll, that is, a member of the earlier and stumpy race of men who, by a later age, were accounted dwarves. These were credited in folk-lore with sex-relations of a primitive kind, an allusion to which seems to linger in the word Hoddy-Doddy as applied to a hen-pecked man.

Among other rhyming compounds is the word Hitty-Pitty. It occurs in a riddle-rhyme which Halliwell traced back to the seventeenth century (MS. Harl. 1962): —

Hitty Pitty within the wall,Hitty Pitty without the wall;If you touch Hitty Pitty,Hitty Pitty will bite you.(A nettle, 1849, p. 149.)

This verse is sometimes used in playing Hide and Seek as a warning to the player who approaches the place that is "hot" (1894, I, 211). A variation of the word is Highty-Tighty, which is preserved in the following rhyme: —

Highty, tighty, paradighty, clothed in green,The king could not read it, no more could the queen;They sent for a wise man out of the East,Who said it had horns, but was not a beast.(1842, p. 118.)

The answer is "A holly tree."

Another rhyming compound is preserved in the riddle-rhyme on the sunbeam: —

Hick-a-more, Hack-a-moreHung on a kitchen door;Nothing so long, and nothing so strong,As Hick-a-more, Hack-a-moreHung on the kitchen door.(1846, p. 207.)

The following riddle-rhyme preserves the word lilly-low, which is the north-country term for the flame of a candle: —

Lilly-low, lilly-low, set up on end,See little baby go out at town end.(A candle, 1849, p. 146.)

Another riddle on the candle, which also stands in MS. Harl. 1962, and has found its way into nursery collections, is: —

Little Nancy Etticoat with a white petticoat,And a red nose;The longer she stands, the shorter she grows.(1842, p. 114.)

This recalls a riddle current in Devonshire, where the sky is called widdicote: —

Widdicote, widdicote, over cote hang;Nothing so broad, and nothing so langAs Widdicote, etc.(1892, p. 333.)

All these riddle-rhymes are based on primitive conceptions, and all have parallels in the nursery lore of other countries. The rhyme on Hoddy-Doddy in Norwegian is simply descriptive; in France it is told in the form of words exchanged between Noiret, "Blacky," the pot, and Rouget, "Ruddy," the fire. In Italy the Pot, the Smoke, and the Fire are described as three sisters. Again, the riddle-rhyme on the candle is told in Swabia and in France. But in no case are the foreign parallels as close as in the riddle-rhyme of Humpty-Dumpty, and in no case do they preserve the same interesting allusions.

CHAPTER XI

CUMULATIVE PIECES

WE now turn to rhymes which dwell on different ideas and present life under other aspects. In these rhymes there is much on spells, on the magic properties of numbers, and on sacrificial hunting. A fatalistic tendency underlies many of these rhymes, and there are conscious efforts to avert danger.

The different range of ideas which are here expressed is reflected in the form of verse in which they are presented. While the rhymes hitherto discussed are set in verse which depends for its consistency on tail rhyme and assonance, the pieces that deal with the magic properties of things and with hunting, are mostly set in a form of verse that depends for its consistency on repetition and cumulation. This difference in form is probably due to the different origin of these pieces. Rhymed verse may have originated in dancing and singing – cumulative verse in recitation and instruction.

In cumulative recitation one sentence is uttered and repeated, a second sentence is uttered and repeated, then the first sentence is said; a third sentence is uttered and repeated, followed by the second and the first. Thus each sentence adds to the piece and carries it back to the beginning. Supposing each letter to stand for a sentence, the form of recitation can thus be described: A, a; B, b, a; C, c, b, a; D, d, c, b, a; etc. This manner of recitation is well known among ourselves, but I know of no word to designate it. In Brittany the form of recitation is known as chant de grénouille, i.e. frog-chant. A game of forfeits was known in the eighteenth century, which was called The Gaping Wide-mouthed Waddling Frog, in which the verses were recited in exactly the same manner. We shall return to it later. A relation doubtless exists between this game and the French expression frog-chant.

Among our most familiar pieces that are set in cumulative form are The Story of the Old Woman and Her Pig and This is the House that Jack built. They both consist of narrative, and are told as stories. This is the House that Jack built first appeared in print as a toy-book that was issued by Marshall at his printing office, Aldermary Churchyard. It is illustrated with cuts, and its date is about 1770. Perhaps the story is referred to in the Boston News Letter (No. 183) of 12-19 April, 1739, in which the reviewer of Tate and Brady's Version of the Psalms remarks that this "makes our children think of the tune of their vulgar playsong so like it: this is the man all forlorn." The sentence looks like a variation of the line "this is the maiden all forlorn" in This is the House that Jack built.

In 1819 there was published in London a satire by Hone, called The Political House that Jack built. It was illustrated by Cruikshank, and went through fifty-four editions. In form it imitates the playsong, which was doubtless as familiar then as it is now.

The playsong in the form published by Marshall begins: —

This is the house that Jack built, —This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built, —This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built, —

which is followed by the cat that killed the rat – the dog that worried the cat – the cow that tossed the dog – the maiden that milked the cow – the man that kissed the maid – the priest that married them. Here it ended. But a further line added by Halliwell (1842, p. 222) mentioned the cock that crowed on the morn of the wedding-day, and a lady of over seventy has supplied me with one more line, on the knife that killed the cock. She tells me that she had the story from her nurse, and that she does not remember seeing it in print. The version she repeated in cumulative form, told to me, ended as follows: —

This is the knife with a handle of horn,that killed the cock that crowed in the morn,that wakened the priest all shaven and shorn,that married the man all tattered and torn,unto the maiden all forlorn,that milked the cow with a crumpled horn,that tossed the dog over the barn,that worried the cat that killed the ratthat ate the malt that lay in the housethat Jack built.

The greater part of this piece consists of rhymed verse, and deals with matters of courtship. The idea of a cock sacrificed on the wedding-day is certainly heathen in origin, but its introduction forms a new departure when we come to compare this piece with its foreign parallels and with the story of The Old Woman and Her Pig. These pieces are all set in the same form, and all introduce a regular sequence of relative powers.

The Old Woman and Her Pig was first printed by Halliwell (1842, p. 219). It tells how the woman found sixpence, and how she set out for market, and bought a pig which on the way back refused to jump over the stile. In order to break the spell that had fallen on it, she summoned to her aid: dog – stick – fire – water – ox – butcher – rope – rat – cat – cow. The cow finally gave the milk required by the cat, which set the other powers going, and thus enabled the woman to get home that night. Halliwell was impressed by the antiquity of this sequence, and included in his collection a translation of a Hebrew chant which has considerable likeness to the tale of The Old Woman and Her Pig. This chant is told in the first person. It begins: —

A kid, a kid my father boughtFor two pieces of money,A kid, a kidThen came the cat and ate the kid,That my father bought,For two pieces of money.A kid, a kid(1842, p. 6.)

It further introduces dog – staff – fire – water – ox – butcher – angel of death – Holy One.

The Hebrew chant of the kid was printed in Venice as far back as 1609, and was made the subject of the learned Latin dissertation De Haedo by Probst von der Hardt in 1727 (R., p. 153). It was again discussed by P. N. Leberecht in 1731.51 The chant forms part of the Jewish liturgy, and is still recited in the original Hebrew or in the vernacular as part of a religious ceremonial at Easter. Opinions on the origin and the meaning of the chant differ. One learned rabbi interpreted it as setting forth how each power in creation is kept within bounds by a power that stands above it. It teaches how he who goes wrong is at the mercy of one stronger than himself. But according to another interpretation the Father who bought the kid was Jehovah himself, the kid was the Hebrew, the cat represented the Assyrians, the dog the Babylonians, and so forth; and the whole poem described the position of the Jews at the time of the Crusades.

The Hebrew chant and its relation to The Old Woman and her Pig engaged the attention of Professor Tylor, who remarked on the solemn ending of the Hebrew chant, which according to him may incline us to think that we really have before us this composition in something like its first form. "If so," he says, "then it follows that our familiar tale of the Old Woman who couldn't get the kid (or pig) over the stile, must be considered as a broken-down adaptation of this old Jewish poem."52

But the tale of the Old Woman taken in conjunction with This is the House that Jack built and its numerous foreign parallels, shows that these sequences of relative powers, far from being broken-down adaptations, are at least as meaningful as the Hebrew chant. For the underlying conception in all cases is that a spell has fallen on an object which man is appropriating to his use. The spell extends to everything, be it man or beast, that comes within the range of its influence, and the unmaking of the spell necessitates going back step by step to the point at which it originated.

Halliwell compared a piece current in Denmark with This is the House that Jack built: —

Der har du det haus som Jacob bygde.

"Here hast thou the house that Jacob built."53

Many other versions of this tale are current in Germany and Scandinavia. In them it is sometimes a question of a house, sometimes of corn, oftenest of cutting oats or of garnering pears. The cumulative form is throughout adhered to. One German piece called Ist alles verlorn, "all is lost," begins: —

Es kam eine Maus gegangenIn unser Kornehaŭs,Die nahm das Korn gefangen,In ŭnserm Kornehaŭs.Die Maus das Korn,Ist alles verlornIn ŭnserm Kornehaŭs.(Sim., p. 256.)

"There came a mouse into our corn-house, she seized the corn in our corn-house. The mouse, the corn, now all is lost in our corn-house."

The other powers are rat, cat, fox, wolf, bear, man, maid. This piece, like This is the House that Jack built, ends abruptly.

Among the less primitive variations of the tale is one recorded in Sonneberg (S., p. 102), and another in the north of France, which both substitute the name of Peter for that of Jack, that is a Christian name for a heathen one. In France the piece is called La Mouche, literally "the fly," but its contents indicate that not mouche but the Latin mus (mouse) was originally meant. The tale departs from the usual form, and has a refrain: —