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CHAPTER IX
CUSTOM RHYMES
THE comparison of our short nursery rhymes with those current in other countries, next engages our attention. Halliwell has remarked that some of our rhymes are chanted by the children of Germany and Scandinavia, which to him strikingly exhibited the great antiquity and remote origin of these rhymes. The observation which he made with regard to the countries of Northern Europe, applies to the countries of Central and Southern Europe also. Scholarly collections of rhymes have been published during recent years in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and referring to special parts of these countries, which give us a fair insight into their nursery lore. (Cf., p. 212). The comparison of these collections with ours yields surprising results. Often the same thought is expressed in the same form of verse. Frequently the same proper name reappears in the same connection. In many cases rhymes, that seem senseless taken by themselves, acquire a definite meaning when taken in conjunction with their foreign parallels. Judging from what we know of nursery rhymes and their appearance in print, the thought of a direct translation of rhymes in the bulk cannot be entertained. We are therefore left to infer, either that rhymes were carried from one country to another at a time when they were still meaningful, or else that they originated in different countries as the outcome of the same stratum of thought.
The sorting of nursery rhymes according to the number of their foreign parallels, yields an additional criterion as to the relative antiquity of certain rhymes. For those rhymes that embody the more primitive conceptions are those that are spread over the wider geographical area. The above inquiry has shown that pieces such as Mother Hubbard and Three Blind Mice are relatively new, and that all the rhymes formed on the model of Little Miss Muffet go back to the Cushion Dance and to the game of Sally Waters. Rhymes of this kind are entirely without foreign parallels. On the other hand, calls, such as those addressed to the ladybird and the snail, and riddle-rhymes, such as that on Humpty Dumpty, have numerous and close parallels half across Europe.
The ladybird is the representative among ourselves of a large class of insects which were associated with the movement of the sun from the earliest times. The association goes back to the kheper or chafer of ancient Egypt, which has the habit of rolling along the ball that contains its eggs. This ball was identified as the orb of the sun, and the kheper was esteemed as the beneficent power that helped to keep it moving.
A like importance attached to the chafers that had the power of flying, especially to the ladybird (Coccinella septem punctata). In India the insect was called Indragopas, that is "protected by Indra." The story is told how this insect flew too near the sun, singed its wings, and fell back to the earth.43
In Greece the same idea was embodied in the myth of Ikaros, the son of Dædalus, who flew too near the sun with the wings he had made for himself, and, falling into the sea, was drowned. Already the ancient Greeks were puzzled by this myth, which found its reasonable explanation in describing Ikaros as the inventor of sails. He was the first to attach sails to a boat, and sailing westwards, he was borne out to sea and perished.
Among ourselves the ladybird is always addressed in connection with its power of flight. It is mostly told to return to its house or home, which is in danger of being destroyed by fire, and warned of the ruin threatening its children if it fails to fly. But some rhymes address it on matters of divination, and one urges it to bring down blessings from heaven.
The rhyme addressed to the ladybird first appears in the nursery collection of 1744, where it stands as follows: —
1. Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children will burn.
Many variations of the rhyme are current in different parts of the country, which may be tabulated as follows: —
2. Lady cow, lady cow, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children all roam.
(1892, p. 326.)
3. Ladycow, Ladycow, fly and be gone,
Your house is on fire, and your children at home.
(Hallamshire, 1892, p. 326.)
4. Gowdenbug, gowdenbug, fly away home,
Yahr house is bahnt dun, and your children all gone.
(Suffolk, N. & Q., IV., 55.)
5. Ladybird, ladybird, eigh thy way home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children all roam,
Except little Nan, who sits in her pan
Weaving gold laces as fast as she can.
(Lancashire, 1892, p. 326.)
6. Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children at home.
They're all burnt but one, and that's little Ann,
And she has crept under the warming pan.
(Rusher's Series.)
7. Ladycow, ladycow, fly thy way home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone;
All but one, that ligs under a stone,
Ply thee home, ladycow, ere it be gone.
(1842, p. 204.)
8. Ladycow, Ladycow, fly away home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone;
All but one, and he is Tum,
And he lies under the grindelstone.
(Shropshire, 1892, p. 327.)
9. Dowdy cow, dowdy cow, ride away hame,
Thy house is burnt, and thy bairns are ta'en;
And if thou means to save thy bairns,
Take thy wings and fly away.
(N. Riding, Yorks., 1892, p. 327.)
10. Lady, lady landers, fly away to Flanders.
(Chambers, 1842, p. 43.)
11. Fly, ladybird, fly!
North, south, east, or west,
Fly to the pretty girl that I love best.
(1849, p. 5.)
12. King, king Golloway, up your wings and fly away,
Over land and over sea; tell me where my love can be.
(Kincardineshire, 1870, p. 201.)
13. Ladycow, ladycow, fly from my hand,
Tell me where my true love stands,
Up hill and down hill and by the sea-sand.
(1892, p. 119.)
14. Bishop, Bishop, Barnabee, tell me when my wedding will be.
If it be to-morrow day,
Ope your wings and fly away.
(Sussex, 1892, p. 119.)
15. Bishop, bishop, barnabee, tell me when my wedding will be.
Fly to the east, fly to the west,
Fly to them that I love best.
(N. & Q., I., p. 132.)
16. Burnie bee, burnie bee, say when will your wedding be.
If it be to-morrow day,
Take your wings and fly away.
(Norfolk, 1849, p. 3.)
17. Bless you, bless you, bonnie bee, say when will your wedding be.
If it be to-morrow day,
Take your wings and fly away.
(M., p. 253, foot-note.)
18. God A'mighty's colly cow, fly up to heaven;
Carry up ten pound, and bring down eleven.
(Hampshire, 1892, p. 327.)
19. This ladyfly I take from the grass,
Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass.
Fly ladybird, north, south, or east or west,
Fly where the man is found that I love best.
(M., p. 417, citing Brand.)
The comparison of these rhymes with their foreign parallels, of which a number were collected by Mannhardt, shows that a rhyme current in Saxony is very close to ours: —
Himmelsküchlein, flieg aus!
Dein Haus brennt,
Deine kinder weinen alle miteinander.
(M., p. 349.)
"Heaven's little chicken, fly away; thy house is on fire, thy children are all crying."
Mannhardt was of opinion that the ladybird rhyme originated as a charm intended to speed the sun across the dangers of sunset, that is, the "house on fire" or welkin of the West, which is set aglow at sundown. Throughout the East a prayer is still uttered to the setting sun in order to ensure its safe return on the morrow.
The ladybird is known by a variety of names both in England and abroad. Among ourselves it is identified as a cow, a bird, or a bee, while the lady of our rhymes reappears as Mary in the German expression Marienkäfer. In Sweden the ladybird is addressed as Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga, "the Lady Mary's keybearer," and this expression is explained by the story that the Virgin lost the keys of heaven, and that all the animals helped her to look for them. They were found by the ladybird, to whose care they are now entrusted. The keys of heaven have been interpreted as the lightning which opened the floodgates of heaven. For the mother divinities were credited with making the weather, with giving rain, and with washing. This latter association lingers in the Scottish ladybird rhyme, in which the ladybird is addressed as landers, i.e. laundress (M., p. 250, foot-note).
In Potsdam they sing: —
Marienwörmken flïg furt,
Flïg furt nach Engelland!
Engelland ist zugeschlossen,
Schlüssel davon abgebrochen.
(M., p. 347.)
"Insect of Mary, fly away, fly away to Engelland. Engelland is locked, its key is broken."
The rhyme thus combines the idea of the keys of heaven with Engelland, the home of the unborn spirits, and with Mary, to whom the insect is dedicated.
Many of our ladybird rhymes refer to the danger that is threatening, probably from sunset or the direction of the West, but one person is safe. It is little Nan, who sits weaving gold laces. Spinning gold or silk was a prerogative of the mother divinities who sat in heaven (Gr., 223, M., 705). Another rhyme calls her Ann. Nan or Ann reappears in the corresponding ladybird rhymes of Switzerland and Swabia. In Aargau they sing: —
Goldchäber, flüg uf, uf dine hoche Tanne,
Zue diner Muetter Anne.
Si git dir Chäs und Brod,
's isch besser as der bitter Tod.
(R., p. 464.)
"Gold-chafer, up and away, up to thy high story, to thy Mother Anne, who gives thee bread and cheese. 'Tis better than bitter death."
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 more
Cannot 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 men
Cannot set Humpty-Dumpty up again.
(1842, p. 113.)
Humpty-Dumpty lay in a beck
With all his sinews around his neck;
Forty doctors and forty wights
Couldn'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 Engelland
De 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: —
"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: —
"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 Bridge
I 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-more
Hung on a kitchen door;
Nothing so long, and nothing so strong,
As Hick-a-more, Hack-a-more
Hung 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 lang
As 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.
