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  THE NURSERY RHYMES OF ENGLAND.


  [Illustration]

  [Illustration]


  THE NURSERY RHYMES OF ENGLAND:

  Collected by

  JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL.




  THE NURSERY RHYMES

  OF

  ENGLAND.

  BY JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. B. SCOTT.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON AND NEW YORK: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.

  1886.


  [Illustration]




  PREFACE

  TO THE

  FIFTH EDITION.


The great encouragement which has been given by the public to the
previous editions of this little work, satisfactorily proves that,
notwithstanding the extension of serious education to all but the very
earliest periods of life, there still exists an undying love for the
popular remnants of the ancient Scandinavian nursery literature.
The infants and children of the nineteenth century have not, then,
deserted the rhymes chanted so many ages since by the mothers of the
North. This is a "great nursery fact"--a proof that there is contained
in some of these traditional nonsense-rhymes a meaning and a romance,
possibly intelligible only to very young minds, that exercise an
influence on the fancy of children. It is obvious there must exist
something of this kind; for no modern compositions are found to supply
altogether the place of the ancient doggerel.

The nursery rhyme is the novel and light reading of the infant
scholar. It occupies, with respect to the A B C, the position of a
romance which relieves the mind from the cares of a riper age.
The absurdity and frivolity of a rhyme may naturally be its chief
attractions to the very young; and there will be something lost from
the imagination of that child, whose parents insist so much on matters
of fact, that the "cow" must be made, in compliance with the rules
of their educational code, to jump "_under_" instead of "_over_ the
moon;" while of course the little dog must be considered as "barking,"
not "laughing" at the circumstance.

These, or any such objections,--for it seems there are others of
about equal weight,--are, it appears to me, more silly than the worst
nursery rhyme the little readers will meet with in the following
pages. I am quite willing to leave the question to their decision,
feeling assured the catering for them has not been in vain, and
that these cullings from the high-ways and bye-ways--they have been
collected from nearly every county in England--will be to them real
flowers, soothing the misery of many an hour of infantine adversity.

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  NURSERY RHYMES.




  CONTENTS.

                                                                  PAGE

  FIRST CLASS--HISTORICAL                                            1

  SECOND CLASS--LITERAL                                             14

  THIRD CLASS--TALES                                                22

  FOURTH CLASS--PROVERBS                                            68

  FIFTH CLASS--SCHOLASTIC                                           76

  SIXTH CLASS--SONGS                                                82

  SEVENTH CLASS--RIDDLES                                           119

  EIGHTH CLASS--CHARMS                                             135

  NINTH CLASS--GAFFERS AND GAMMERS                                 141

  TENTH CLASS--GAMES                                               154

  ELEVENTH CLASS--PARADOXES                                        196

  TWELFTH CLASS--LULLABIES                                         205

  THIRTEENTH CLASS--JINGLES                                        213

  FOURTEENTH CLASS--LOVE AND MATRIMONY                             224

  FIFTEENTH CLASS--NATURAL HISTORY                                 251

  SIXTEENTH CLASS--ACCUMULATIVE STORIES                            282

  SEVENTEENTH CLASS--LOCAL                                         299

  EIGHTEENTH CLASS--RELICS                                         303

  INDEX                                                            317

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FIRST CLASS--HISTORICAL.


I.

  Old King Cole
  Was a merry old soul,
  And a merry old soul was he;
  He called for his pipe,
  And he called for his bowl,
  And he called for his fiddlers three.
  Every fiddler, he had a fiddle,
  And a very fine fiddle had he;
  Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the fiddlers.
  Oh, there's none so rare,
  As can compare
  With King Cole and his fiddlers three!

    [The traditional Nursery Rhymes of England commence with a
    legendary satire on King Cole, who reigned in Britain, as the
    old chroniclers inform us, in the third century after Christ.
    According to Robert of Gloucester, he was the father of
    St. Helena, and if so, Butler must be wrong in ascribing an
    obscure origin to the celebrated mother of Constantine. King
    Cole was a brave and popular man in his day, and ascended
    the throne of Britain on the death of Asclepiod, amidst
    the acclamations of the people, or, as Robert of Gloucester
    expresses himself, the "fole was tho of this lond y-paid wel
    y-nou." At Colchester there is a large earthwork, supposed to
    have been a Roman amphitheatre, which goes popularly by
    the name of "King Cole's kitchen." According to Jeffrey of
    Monmouth, King Cole's daughter was well skilled in music, but
    we unfortunately have no evidence to show that her father was
    attached to that science, further than what is contained in
    the foregoing lines, which are of doubtful antiquity. The
    following version of the song is of the seventeenth century,
    the one given above being probably a modernization:--

      Good King Cole,
      He call'd for his bowl,
      And he call'd for fidlers three:
      And there was fiddle fiddle,
      And twice fiddle fiddle,
      For 'twas my lady's birth-day;
      Therefore we keep holiday,
      And come to be merry.]


II.

  When good king Arthur ruled this land,
    He was a goodly king;
  He stole three pecks of barley-meal,
    To make a bag-pudding.

  A bag-pudding the king did make,
    And stuff'd it well with plums:
  And in it put great lumps of fat,
    As big as my two thumbs.

  The king and queen did eat thereof,
    And noblemen beside;
  And what they could not eat that night,
    The queen next morning fried.


III.

    [The following song relating to Robin Hood, the celebrated
    outlaw, is well known at Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, where it
    constitutes one of the nursery series.]

  Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
  Is in the mickle wood!
  Little John, Little John,
  He to the town is gone.

  Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
    Is telling his beads,
  All in the green wood,
    Among the green weeds.

  Little John, Little John,
    If he comes no more,
  Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
    He will fret full sore!


IV.

    [The following lines were obtained in Oxfordshire. The story
    to which it alludes is related by Matthew Paris.]

  One moonshiny night
  As I sat high,
  Waiting for one
  To come by;
  The boughs did bend,
  My heart did ache
  To see what hole the fox did make.


V.

    [The following perhaps refers to Joanna of Castile, who
    visited the court of Henry the Seventh, in the year 1506.]

  I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
  But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear;
  The king of Spain's daughter came to visit me,
  And all was because of my little nut tree.
  I skipp'd over water, I danced over sea,
  And all the birds in the air couldn't catch me.


VI.

    [From a MS. in the old Royal Library, in the British Museum,
    the exact reference to which is mislaid. It is written, if I
    recollect rightly, in a hand of the time of Henry VIII, in an
    older manuscript.]

  We make no spare
  Of John Hunkes' mare;
  And now I
  Think she will die;
  He thought it good
  To put her in the wood,
  To seek where she might ly dry;
  If the mare should chance to fale,
  Then the crownes would for her sale.


VII.

    [From MS. Sloane, 1489, fol. 19, written in the time of
    Charles I.]

  The king of France, and four thousand men,
  They drew their swords, and put them up again.


VIII.

    [In a tract, called 'Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the
    North,' 4to Lond. 1642, p. 3, this is called "Old Tarlton's
    Song." It is perhaps a parody on the popular epigram of "Jack
    and Jill." I do not know the period of the battle to which it
    appears to allude, but Tarlton died in the year 1588, so that
    the rhyme must be earlier.]

  The king of France went up the hill,
    With twenty thousand men;
