Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin.

This chant further describes that the bird was hunted with sticks and stones, a cart was hired, he was brought home, he was boiled in the brewery-pan, he was eaten with knives and forks, the king and the queen dined at the feast, and the pluck went to the poor.

The behaviour of the huntsmen was not, however, in keeping with these words; for the bearers of the wren, after making the circuit, laid it on a bier and carried it to the parish churchyard, where it was buried with the utmost solemnity, and dirges were sung over it in the Manx language, which were called the knell of the wren. The company then formed a circle outside the churchyard and danced to music.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the wren was still hunted in the Isle of Man and was carried by boys from door to door, suspended by the legs in the centre of two hoops. These crossed each other at right angles and were decorated with evergreens and ribbons. The boys recited the chant. In return for a coin they gave a feather of the wren, so that before the end of the day the bird hung featherless. A superstitious value was attached to these feathers, for the possession of one of them was considered an effective preservative from shipwreck during the coming year among the sailors. At this time the bird was no longer buried in the churchyard, but on the seashore or in some waste place.

The hunt in the Isle of Man was accounted for by the legend that in former times a fairy of uncommon beauty exerted such influence over the male population of the island that she induced them by her sweet voice to follow her footsteps, till by degrees she led them into the sea, where they perished. At last a knight-errant sprang up, who laid a plot for her destruction, which she escaped at the last moment by taking the form of a wren. But a spell was cast upon her by which she was condemned on every succeeding New Year's Day to reanimate the same form, with the definite sentence that she must ultimately perish by human hand. In this form the legend is told by Train. Waldron relates the same story, which explained why the female sex are now held of little account in the island, but the fairy according to him was transformed into a bat.

In Ireland also the wren was generally hunted during the eighteenth century, and continues to be hunted in Leinster and in Connaught, but I have come across no chant of the hunt. The bird was slain by the peasants, and was carried about hung by the leg inside two crossed hoops, and a custom rhyme was sung which began: —

The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,Was caught St. Stephen's Day in the furze;Although he's little, his family's great,Then pray, gentlefolks, give him a treat.(1849, p. 166.)

The bird was slain, but it was not therefore dead. This is conveyed by the tale told in the Isle of Man, and by the following custom observed in Pembrokeshire on 6 January, that is on Twelfth Day. On this day one or several wrens were secured in a small house or cage, sometimes the stable lantern, which was decorated with ribbons and carried from house to house while the following lines were sung: —

Joy, health, love, and peace,Be to you in this place.By your leave we will singConcerning our king:Our king is well drest,In silks of the best,With his ribbons so rareNo king can compare.In his coach he does rideWith a great deal of prideAnd with four footmenTo wait upon him.We were four at watch,And all nigh of a match;And with powder and ballWe fired at his hall.We have travell'd many miles,Over hedges and stiles,To find you this kingWhich we now to you bring.Now Christmas is past,Twelfth Day is the last.Th' Old Year bids adieu;Great joy to the new.(1876, p. 35.)

On grouping together these various pieces, we are struck by their likeness, and by the antiquity of their allusions. The bird was usually slain with stones and sticks, which are among the most primitive weapons. In Wales bows and arrows, which are old also, were declared preferable to cannons and guns. In Wales the bird was cut up with hatchets and cleavers in preference to knives and forks; it was boiled in the brewery pan, or in cauldrons and pans, in preference to kettles and pots; and it was conveyed about in a waggon or cart in preference to being carried on four men's shoulders. Sometimes the bird was plucked. Finally it was cut up in a sacrificial manner; one wing – another – one leg – another – and the spare ribs or the pluck, as the least valuable part of the feast, went to the poor.

The representative huntsmen in England are Robbin, Bobbin, Richard, and John-all-alone. In Scotland they are Fozie-Mozie, Johnie Rednosie, and Foslin, besides "the brethren and kin." In Wales they are Milder, Malder, Festel, Fose, and John the Rednose. Of these characters only Robin and Bobbin (the names are sometimes run together) and Richard, reappear in other nursery pieces. In the oldest collection of 1744 stand the lines: —

Robbin and Bobbin, two great belly'd men,They ate more victuals than three-score men.(1744, p. 25.)

These powers of eating perhaps refer to the first share of these characters at the feast. They are further dwelt on in the following nursery rhyme: —

Robin the Bobbin, the big-headed hen [or ben]He eat more meat than four-score men.He eat a cow, he eat a calf,He eat a butcher and a half;He eat a church, he eat a steeple,He eat the priest and all the people.(c. 1783, p. 43.)

To which some collections add: —

And yet he complained that his belly was not full.

Other pieces dilate on Robin and Richard as lazy in starting, and on Robin, whose efforts as a huntsman were attended with ill luck: —

Robin and Richard were two pretty men,They lay in bed till the clock struck ten:Then up starts Robin, and looks at the sky,Oh! brother Richard, the sun's very high.You go before, with the bottle and bag,And I will come after, on little Jack Nag.(c. 1783, p. 42.)Robin-a-Bobbin bent his bow,Shot at a woodcock and killed a yowe [ewe];The yowe cried ba, and he ran away,And never came back till Midsummer day.(1890, p. 346.)

Halliwell saw a relation between the huntsman of this verse and the bird robin, since the robin was reckoned to disappear at Christmas and not to return till Midsummer. As a matter of fact, the robin leaves the abodes of man and retires into the woodland as soon as the sharp winter frost is over. However this may be, the presence of the wren and of the robin was mutually exclusive, as we shall see in the pieces which deal with the proposed union, the jealousy, and the death of these two birds.

CHAPTER XVI

BIRD SACRIFICE

THE custom of slaying the wren is widespread in France also. But the chants that deal with it dwell, not like ours, on the actual hunt, but on the sacrificial plucking and dividing up of the bird. Moreover, the French chants depend for their consistency not on repetition like ours, but are set in cumulative form. Both in contents and in form they seem to represent the same idea in a later development.

At Entraigues, in Vaucluse, men and boys hunted the wren on Christmas Eve, and when they caught a bird alive they gave it to the priest, who set it free in church. At Mirabeau the hunted bird was blessed by the priest, and the curious detail is preserved that if the first bird was secured by a woman, this gave the sex the right to jeer at and insult the men, and to blacken their faces with mud and soot if they caught them. At Carcassonne, on the first Sunday of December, the young people who dwelt in the street of Saint-Jean went out of the town armed with sticks and stones to engage in the hunt. The first person who struck the bird was hailed king, and carried the bird home in procession. On the last of December he was solemnly introduced to his office as king; on Twelfth Day he attended mass in church, and then, crowned and girt about with a cloak, he visited the various dignitaries of the place, including the bishop and the mayor, in a procession of mock solemnity. This was done as late as 1819.67 This identification of the bird and the men explains the hiring of a cart or waggon to convey "the bird" in our own custom-rhymes.

The Breton chant on "plucking the wren," Plumer le roitelet begins: —

Nin' ziblus bec al laouenanicRac henès a zo bihanic | bis.(L., I, p. 72.)

"We will pluck the beak of the wren, for he is very small," and continues, "We will pluck the left eye of the wren, for he is very small".

and then enumerates right eye, left ear, right ear, head, neck, chest, back, belly, left wing, right wing, left buttock, right buttock, left thigh, right thigh, left leg, right leg, left foot, right foot, first claw of left foot and every claw in succession of this and of the other foot. The last sentence is "We will pluck the tail of the wren," and then sentence after sentence is repeated to the first, "We will pluck the beak of the wren because he is very small, we have plucked him altogether."

Another poem preserved in Breton relates how the wren was caught and caged and fed till the butcher and his comrades came and slew it, when the revelry began (L., I, p. 7).

I have often wondered at the cruel sport of confining singing birds in cages. Possibly this goes back to a custom of fattening a victim that was sacrificially slain. For the wren is tabu in Brittany as among ourselves, and in popular belief the nestlings of each brood assemble with the parent birds in the nest on Twelfth Night, and must on no account be disturbed. This reflects the belief that the creature that is slain during the winter solstice, at its close starts on a new lease of life.

The wren is not the only bird that was sacrificially eaten in France, judging from the chants that are recorded. A chant on "plucking the lark," Plumer l'alouette, is current in the north of France which begins: —

Nous la plumerons, l'alouette,Nous la plumerons, tout de long.(D. B., p. 124.)

"We will pluck the lark, we will pluck it altogether."

And it enumerates the bird's beak, eyes, head, throat, back, wings, tail, legs, feet, claws.

A variation of the same chant is sung in Languedoc, where it is called L'alouette plumée, "the plucked lark," and is described as a game (M. L., p. 457).

Again, the dividing up of the thrush forms the subject of a chant which is sung in Brittany in the north (L., I, p. 81), and in Languedoc in the south. It is called Dépecer le merle, and preserves the further peculiarity that the bird, although it is divided up, persists in singing. The version current in Languedoc begins: —

Le merle n'a perdut le bec, le merle n'a perdut le bec,Comment fra-t-il, le merle, comment pourra-t-il chanter?Emai encaro canto, le pauvre merle, merle,Emai encaro canto, le pauvre merlatou.(M. L., p. 458.)

"The thrush has lost his beak, how will he manage to sing, and yet he sings, the poor thrush, yet he goes on singing."

The chant then enumerates the bird's tongue, one eye, two eyes, head, neck, one wing, two wings, one foot, two feet, body, back, feathers, tail; always returning to the statement that the bird, although it is divided up, persists in singing.

The French word merle stands both for thrush and for blackbird. The blackbird is held in reverence among ourselves in Salop and Montgomeryshire, and blackbird-pie was eaten in Cornwall on Twelfth Night.68 But there is no reference to the sacrificial slaying of the bird, as far as I am aware. In the French chant the bird continues to sing although it is killed. The same idea finds expression in our nursery song of Sing a Song of Sixpence. This piece, taken in conjunction with the eating of blackbird-pie in Cornwall and the French chants, seems to preserve the remembrance of the ancient bird sacrifice. The first verse of this rhyme appears in the collection of 1744, in which "naughty boys" stands for blackbirds. In other collections the piece runs as follows: —

Sing a song of sixpence, a bagful of rye,Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pyeAnd when the pye was open'd, the birds began to sing;Was not this a dainty dish to set before the king?The king was in his parlour counting out his money,The queen was in the kitchen eating bread and honey,The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,Up came a magpie and bit off her nose.(c. 1783, p. 26.)

The magpie is "a little blackbird" in the version of Halliwell, which continues: —

Jenny was so mad, she didn't know what to do,She put her finger in her ear and cracked it right in two.

Halliwell (1842, p. 62) noted that in the book called Empulario or the Italian Banquet of 1589, there is a receipt "to make pies so that the birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up," a mere device, live birds being introduced after the pie is made. One cannot but wonder if the device was a mere sport of fancy, or if it originated from the desire to give substance to an ancient belief.

Again, the robin redbreast was sacrificially eaten in France at Le Charme, Loiret, on Candlemas, that is on February the first (Ro., II, 264). There are no chants on the sacrifice of the robin in France, as far as I know. Among ourselves, on the other hand, where no hunting of the robin is recorded, a piece printed both by Herd69 and Chambers suggests his sacrifice. The piece is called by Chambers The Robin's Testament, and it describes how the bird, on the approach of death, made a bequest of his several parts, which he enumerated exactly in the way of the sacrificial bird-chants current in France. They were his neb, feathers of his neb, right leg, other leg, feathers of his tail, and feathers of his breast, to each of which he attributed a mystic significance. The piece in the combined versions stands as follows: —

Guid-day now, bonnie RobinHow lang have you been here?I've been bird about this bush,This mair than twenty year!Chorus: Teetle ell ell, teetle ell ell.Tee, tee, tee, tee, tee, tee, tee,Tee, tee, tee, teetle eldie.But now I am the sickest birdThat ever sat on brier;And I wad make my testament,Guidman, if ye wad hear."Gar tak this bonnie neb o' mine,That picks upon the corn,And gie 't to the Duke o' HamiltonTo be a hunting horn."Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mine,The feathers o' my neb,And gie to the Lady o' HamiltonTo fill a feather-bed."Gar tak this guid right leg o' mineAnd mend the brig o' Tay;It will be a post and pillar guid,It will neither ban nor gae."And tak this other leg o' mineAnd mend the brig o'er Weir;It will be a post and pillar guid,It'll neither ban nor steer.(Herd only)"Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mineThe feathers o' my tail,And gie to the Lady o' HamiltonTo be a barn-flail."Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mineThe feathers o' my breast,And gie to ony bonnie ladThat'll bring me to a priest."Now in there came my Lady WrenWith mony a sigh and groan;"O what care I for a' the ladsIf my wee lad be gone?"Then robin turned him round aboutE'en like a little king,"Go, pack ye out at my chamber door,Ye little cutty quean."(Chambers only)Robin made his testamentUpon a coll of hayAnd by came a greedy gledAnd snapt him a' away.(1870, p. 40.)

The Robin's Testament should be compared with the French piece called Le Testament de l'Ane, "the testament of the ass," of which a number of variations have been collected. The "testament of the ass" was recited outside the church on the so-called Fête de l'Ane, "the feast of the ass," which was kept in many cities of France till a comparatively recent date. In Douai it was celebrated as late as the year 1668. On this occasion an ass was brought into church, and an office was recited in Latin, which enlarged on the ass that carried the Holy Family into Egypt, the ass which bore Christ into Jerusalem, the ass of Balaam, and so forth. Its chorus consisted of braying, in which the assembled canons joined. This service in church was preceded by a recitation outside the holy edifice, which was in the vernacular, and which, in dialogue form, enlarged on the several parts of the ass.70

One of these dialogue pieces, current in Franche-Comté, describes how the she-ass, conscious of the approach of death, bequeathed her feet and ears to her son, her skin to the drummer, her tail to the priest to make an aspergill, and her hole to the notary to make an inkpot (B., p. 61).

Another version, at greater length, is in the form of instruction which is given by the priest to the child, whose answers are set in cumulative form.

"The feast of the ass," in the words of Bujeaud, "must have been very popular, since I have often heard the children of Angoumais and Poitou recite the following piece ": —

Le prêtre: Que signifient les deux oreilles de l'âne?

L'enfant: Les deux oreilles de l'âne signifient les deux grands saints, patrons de notre ville.

Le prêtre: Que signifie la tête de l'âne?

L'enfant: La tête de l'âne signifie la grosse cloche et la langue fait le battant de cette grosse cloche qui est dans le clocher de la cathédrale des saints patrons de notre ville.

(B. I., p. 65.)

"The priest: What do the ears of the ass stand for? – The child: The ears of the ass stand for the two great patron saints of our city. – The priest: What does the head stand for? – The head stands for the great bell, and the tongue for the clapper of the great bell which is in the belfry of the cathedral of the holy saints, the patrons of our city."

We then read of the throat which stands for the entrance to the cathedral – the body for the cathedral itself – the four legs, its pillars – the heart and liver, its great lamps – the belly, its alms-box – the tail which stands for the aspergill – the hide which stands for the cope of the priest – and the hole which stands for the holy-water stoup.

This chant on the parts of the ass is among the most curious survivals. At first one feels inclined to look upon it as intended to convey ridicule, but this idea is precluded by the existence of The Robin's Testament, and by the numerous pieces which enumerate the several parts of the bird in connection with the bird sacrifice. Again in this case we are led to look upon the piece as a garbled survival of some heathen form of ritual. The ass, however, was not known in Western Europe till a comparatively late period in history. It has no common Aryan name, and the question therefore arises how it can have come to be associated with what is obviously a heathen form of ritual.

Mannhardt, with regard to German folk-lore, pointed out that the ass was substituted in many places for the hare, which was tabu, and with which it shared the peculiarity of having long ears. This substitution was favoured by their likeness of name: heselîn, heselken. (M., p. 412.)

We are led to inquire if the ass in Western Europe can have taken the place of another animal also, and we find ourselves confronted with the following facts: —

Dicky among ourselves is applied to a bird, especially to a caged (? perhaps a sacrificial) bird; the word Dicky is also widely applied to an ass, properly to a he-ass.71 The ass is often called by nicknames exactly like the small wild birds: Jack-ass, Betty-ass, Jenny-ass, in form closely correspond to Jack-daw, Magpie, and Jenny Wren of the feathered tribe. The word Jack-ass moreover is applied both to the four-footed beast and to a member of the feathered tribe. Nicknames probably originated in the desire to conceal a creature's true identity.

In Scotland the word cuddy again stands both for an ass and for some kinds of bird, including the hedge-sparrow and the moor-hen.[71] The word cuddy is said to be short for Cuthbert, but it seems to be related also to cutty, an adjective applied to the wren (cf. above, p. 176, 193), the derivation and meaning of which are uncertain.

The same overlapping of terms exists in France, where the ass is popularly called Martin (Ro., IV, 206, 223, 233), while the feathered martins include the martin pêcheur, kingfisher, the martin rose, goatsucker, and the martinets (Ro., II, p. 70). In Germany also, where no bird-chants are recorded, as far as I am aware, the expression Martinsvogel is applied to a bird of augury of uncertain identity, sometimes to the redbreast (Gr., p. 946). And a current proverb has it, Es ist mehr als ein Esel der Martin heisst, "he is more than an ass who is called Martin." (Ro., IV, 233.) In Barmen boys parade the streets on the eve of St. Martin's Day, asking for contributions, and, if they receive nothing, they sing: —

Mäten ist ein Esel, der zieht die Kuh am Besel.

(B., p. 363.)

"Martin is an ass, he pulls the cow by the tail," that is, "he has no money in his purse."

These various survivals support the view that the ass in Western Europe somehow got mixed up with the birds. When and how this came about is difficult to tell. The representatives of Christianity were in a position to accept the feast of the ass, since the ass figured largely in the Old and the New Testaments. But we do not know if they consciously did so, and introduced the ass in the place of another animal, or if they took over an animal which had before their time been accepted in the place of a bird.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ROBIN AND THE WREN

ONE side of the subject remains to be discussed. It is the relation of the robin to the wren. Many custom rhymes, legends, and nursery pieces name the birds together, and they sometimes enlarge on the jealousy of the birds, and on the fact that their presence was reckoned mutually exclusive. Perhaps the birds, looked at from one point of view, were accounted the representatives of the seasons, and, as such, came and went by turns.

The robin and the wren are mentioned together in several custom rhymes, some of which mention other birds also: —

The robin redbreast and the wrenAre God's cock and hen.(1826, p. 292.)

In Warwickshire they say: —

The robin and the wrenAre God Almighty's cock and hen;The martin and the swallowAre God Almighty's bow and arrow.(1870, p. 188.)

In Lancashire this takes the form: —

The robin and the wren are God's cock and hen;The spink and the sparrow are the de'il's bow and arrow.(1892, p. 275.)

This association of the sparrow with the bow and arrow reappears in some nursery pieces, as we shall see later.

The robin and the wren are coupled together also in the following rhyme from Scotland, which has found its way into some modern English nursery collections: —

The robin redbreast and the wranCoost out about the parritch pan;And ere the robin got a spuneThe wran she had the parritch dune.(1870, p. 188.)

The Robin's Testament already quoted concludes with anger on the part of the robin at the entrance of the wren, whose appearance heralds his death. Other pieces describe the inverse case, when the wren dies in spite of the robin's efforts to keep her alive. This conception forms the subject of a Scottish ballad called The Birds' Lamentation, which is included in the collection of David Herd of the year 1776. It contains the following lines: —

The Wren she lyes in Care's bed, in meikle dule and pyne, O!Quhen in came Robin Red-breast wi' sugar saps and wine, O!– Now, maiden will ye taste o' this? –  It's sugar saps and wine, O!Na, ne'er a drap, Robin, (I wis); gin it be ne'er so fine, O!– Ye're no sae kind's ye was yestreen, or sair I hae mistae'n, O!Ye're no the lass, to pit me by, and bid me gang my lane, O!And quhere's the ring that I gied ye, ye little cutty quean, O!– I gied it till an ox-ee [tomtit], a kind sweat-heart o' myne, O!

The same incidents are related of real birds in the toy-book called The Life and Death of Jenny Wren, which was published by Evans in 1813 "for the use of young ladies and gentlemen: —

A very small book at a very small charge,To teach them to read before they grow large."

The story begins: —

Jenny Wren fell sick upon a merry time,In came Robin Redbreast and brought her sops and wine;Eat well of the sop, Jenny, drink well of the wine.Thank you Robin kindly, you shall be mine.

The wren recovered for a time, but her behaviour was such as to rouse the robin's jealousy. She finally died, and the book concludes with the lines: —

Poor Robin long for Jenny grieves,At last he covered her with leaves.Yet near the place a mournful layFor Jenny Wren sings every day.

It was an ancient superstition that the robin took charge of the dead, especially of those who died by inadvertence.