E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Huub Bakker, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 24271-h.htm or 24271-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/2/3/24271/24271-h/24271-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/2/3/24271/24271-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Some text styles have been preserved by enclosing text between special characters. Italics uses _underlines_, small capitals uses ~tildes~, and bold uses =equal signs=. CHILDREN'S RHYMES CHILDREN'S GAMES CHILDREN'S SONGS CHILDREN'S STORIES A Book for Bairns and Big Folk by ROBERT FORD Author of "Thistledown," and Editor of "Ballads of Bairnhood," "Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland" Etc., etc. "_Auld rhymes and auld chimes Gar us think on auld times_" --_Proverb_ [Illustration: JINGO-RING. DRAWN BY KATE T. HILL.] Paisley: Alexander Gardner Publisher to the late Queen Victoria: 1904 Second Edition PREFACE. In offering to the public this collection of Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, and Children's Stories--the multitudinous items of which, or such, at least, as were not living in my own memory, have been gathered with patient industry, albeit with much genuine delight, from wide and varied sources--I anticipate for the work a hearty and general welcome, alike from old and young. It is the first really sincere effort to collect in anything like ample and exclusive fashion the _natural literature_ of the children of Scotland, and meets what has long appealed to me as decidedly a felt want. The earlier pages are occupied with a commentary, textually illustrated, on the generally puerile, but regularly fascinating Rhymes of the Nursery, the vitality and universal use of which have been at once the wonder and the puzzle of the ages. This is followed in turn by a chapter on Counting-out Rhymes, with numerous examples, home and foreign; which is succeeded, appropriately, by a section of the work embracing description of all the well-known out-door and in-door Rhyme-Games--in each case the Rhyme being given, the action being portrayed. The remaining contents the title may be left to suggest. I may only add that the Stories--including "Blue Beard," and "Jack the Giant Killer," and their fellow-narratives--ten in all--are printed _verbatim_ from the old chapbooks once so common in the country, but now so rare as to be almost unobtainable.