If you really like these songs, I can tell you the names of one or two
more, such as I CAN DO THE TANGO and I’LL TELL MOTHER, MARY ANNE, and
MOTHER, MOTHER, FETCH ME HOME and FATHER GIVE (that means _gave_) ME A
HA’PENNY and POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON and JUMBO HAD A BABY and LEAVE THE
ROPE and COME ON, AMY and SOME ONE’S UNDER THE BED and PLEASE WILL YOU
LEND THE KEY and CINDARELLA-UMBERELLA and THE HOUSE IS EMPTY AND NOBODY
IN and HABERDASHER ISHER ASHER OM POM TOSH and R. WHITE’S GINGER-BEER
GOES OFF POP and MADEMOISELLE WENT TO THE WELL (which is interesting
because they have forgotten what “mademoiselle” means and now call it
ADAM AND ELL) and MY SON JOHN WENT TO BED WITH HIS STOCKINGS ON and MY
MOTHER SAID THAT I WAS BORN and POOR JENNIE IS A-WEEPING and LONDON
BRIDGE IS BROKEN DOWN (two well-known old ones) and WILLIE HAD A LETTER
FOR TO GO ON BOARD A SHIP and OATS AND BEANS AND BARLEY GROW and NOW
WE’RE ON THE BATTLEFIELD and MY FATHER HAD AN OLD SHOE and I WENT DOWN
PICCADILLY.
You can get as many of these songs out of the girls as you like, if you
care to come round and ask for them; you’ll find the girls far less
shy about their games than the boys are. And you’ll also notice that
they’re just as good at inventing sports--the boys show up best in the
duty-games, and the girls in their songs. But there’s this difference.
You’ll not find much talk in these songs about sunshine and flowers and
things like that--except in the older ones which I think were used by
girls and boys together, and perhaps even by grown-ups. The girls don’t
discover poetic things like “Swimming in Blue Water” or “Dead Man’s
Dark Scenery”; they’re matter-of-fact; they sing about clothes and food
and money. That’s what makes Aunt Eliza say that women have more common
sense than men....
FOOTNOTES:
[G] Not all of them are sung to games.
[H] There is an improper version of this, and of several others.
[I] “has I was goning to strrber far sing butter u cup and dassies I
bet a mide take a there forder In the ises were belw but I gend a hir
she gose on to strrber far rif rif tola len lile rif rif tale led lile.”
[J] Sadlers’ Wells.
Then the smaller girls and boys have a number of games together:
MOTHERS AND FATHERS, for instance, and TEACHERS, and SCHOOLS, and
SOLDIERS, and NURSES, and HOSPITALS, and CARTS AND HORSES, and SHOPS,
and CONVICTS AND WARDERS, and RAILWAY STATIONS, and games of that
kind; and OLD DADDY WITCHES (also called POLLY WITCH or GRANNY WITCH)
and SLEIGHS and I BOUGHT A DONKEY and I BOUGHT A PENNY DOLL and FIRE
ENGINES and FROGS and WAR and CAT AND MOUSE and CAT AND DOG and HERE WE
GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH and A.B.C.D.F.G.--WHAT HAVE I LEFT OUT?--
“one silly kid says E., and then all the others says you’re _it_!”
namely “he” (E.)--
and JACK HORNER and OLD AUNT SALLY and TIP-TOP IS A SWEETS STORE and
TOM TIDDLER. You know TOM TIDDLER, of course:
“I’m on old Tom Tiddler’s ground,
Picking up gold and silver--”?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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