Lina Eckenstein - Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

Again, the poet Henry Carey, about the year 1720, ridiculed the odes addressed to children by Ambrose Philips by likening these to a jumble of nursery rhymes. In doing so he cited the rhymes, "Namby Pamby Jack a Dandy," "London Bridge is broken down," "Liar Lickspit," "Jacky Horner," "See-saw," and others, which nowadays are still included among the ordinary stock of our rhymes.

Again, in the year 1671, John Eachard, the divine, illustrated his argument by quoting the alphabet rhyme "A was an apple pie," as far as "G got it." 9 9 Eachard, Observations, etc. , 1671, cited. Halliwell, Popular Rhymes , 1849, p. 137. Instances such as these do not, however, carry us back farther than the seventeenth century.

Another clue to the date of certain rhymes is afforded by their mention of historical persons, in a manner which shows that the rhyme in this form was current at the time when the individual whom they mention was prominently before the eyes of the public. Halliwell recorded from oral tradition the following verse: —

The verse refers to Dr. Sacheverel, the nonconformist minister who preached violent sermons in St. Paul's, pointing at the Whig members as false friends and real enemies of the Church. John Dolben (1662-1710) called attention to them in the House of Commons, and they were declared "malicious, scandalous, and seditious libels."

Again there is the rhyme: —

This is said to preserve the names of two celebrated courtesans of the reign of Charles II (1892, p. 330).

The first name in the following rhyme is that of a famous border hero who was hanged between 1529 and 1530: —

Among the pieces collected by Halliwell, and told in cumulative form, one begins and ends with the following line, which recurs at the end of every verse: —

John Ball shot them all.

Halliwell is of opinion that this may refer to the priest who took a prominent part in the rebellion at the time of Richard II, and who was hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1381.

But a historical name does not necessarily indicate the date of a rhyme. For a popular name is sometimes substituted for one that has fallen into contempt or obscurity. Moreover, a name may originally have indicated a person other than the one with whom it has come to be associated.

A familiar nursery song printed in the collection of c. 1783, and extant in several variants, is as follows: —

Mr. Chappell, as cited by Halliwell, considered that this version is not the correct one, but the one which begins: —

The same story related in one verse only, and in simpler form, connects it with Queen Elizabeth, in a version recovered in Berkshire.

On the face of it the last variant appears to be the oldest.

An interesting example of a change of name, and of the changing meaning of a name, is afforded by the nursery song that is told of King Arthur, and mutatis mutandis of Old King Cole. The poem of King Arthur is as follows: —

In this form the piece is designated as a glee, and is printed in the New Lyric by Badcock of about 1720, which contains "the best songs now in vogue."

In the nursery collection of Halliwell of 1842 there is a parallel piece to this which stands as follows: —

Chappell printed the words of the song of Old King Cole in several variations, and pointed out that The Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading, or the Six Worthie Yeomen of the West of 1632, contains the legend of one Cole, a cloth-maker of Reading at the time of King Henry I, and that the name "became proverbial owing to the popularity of this book." "There was some joke or conventional meaning among Elizabethan dramatists," he says, "when they gave the name of Old Cole, which it is now difficult to recover." Dekker in the Satiromatrix of 1602, and Marston in The Malcontent of 1604, applied the name to a woman. On the other hand, Ben Jonson in Bartholomew Fair gave the name of Old Cole to the sculler in the puppet-play Hero and Leander which he there introduces. 10 10 Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time , 1893, p. 633. In face of this information, what becomes of the identity of the supposed king?

On the other hand a long ancestry is now claimed for certain characters of nursery fame who seemed to have no special claim to attention. The following verse appears in most collections of rhymes, and judging from the illustration which accompanies it in the toy-books, it refers sometimes to a boy and a girl, sometimes to two boys.

This verse, as was first suggested by Baring-Gould, 11 11 Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages , 1866, p. 189. preserves the Scandinavian myth of the children Hjuki and Bill who were caught up by Mani, the Moon, as they were taking water from the well Byrgir, and they can be seen to this day in the moon carrying the bucket on the pole between them.

Another rhyme cited by Halliwell from The New Mad Tom o'Bedlam mentions Jack as being the Man in the Moon: —