which is followed by the cat that killed the rat--the dog that worried the cat--the cow that tossed the dog--the maiden that milked the cow--the man that kissed the maid--the priest that married them. Here it ended. But a further line added by Halliwell (1842, p. 222) mentioned the cock that crowed on the morn of the wedding-day, and a lady of over seventy has supplied me with one more line, on the knife that killed the cock. She tells me that she had the story from her nurse, and that she does not remember seeing it in print. The version she repeated in cumulative form, told to me, ended as follows:-- This is the knife with a handle of horn, that killed the cock that crowed in the morn, that wakened the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, unto the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with a crumpled horn, that tossed the dog over the barn, that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. The greater part of this piece consists of rhymed verse, and deals with matters of courtship. The idea of a cock sacrificed on the wedding-day is certainly heathen in origin, but its introduction forms a new departure when we come to compare this piece with its foreign parallels and with the story of _The Old Woman and Her Pig_. These pieces are all set in the same form, and all introduce a regular sequence of relative powers. _The Old Woman and Her Pig_ was first printed by Halliwell (1842, p. 219). It tells how the woman found sixpence, and how she set out for market, and bought a pig which on the way back refused to jump over the stile. In order to break the spell that had fallen on it, she summoned to her aid: dog--stick--fire--water--ox--butcher--rope--rat--cat--cow. The cow finally gave the milk required by the cat, which set the other powers going, and thus enabled the woman to get home that night. Halliwell was impressed by the antiquity of this sequence, and included in his collection a translation of a Hebrew chant which has considerable likeness to the tale of _The Old Woman and Her Pig_. This chant is told in the first person. It begins:-- A kid, a kid my father bought For two pieces of money, A kid, a kid. Then came the cat and ate the kid, That my father bought, For two pieces of money. A kid, a kid. (1842, p. 6.) It further introduces dog--staff--fire--water--ox--butcher--angel of death--Holy One.