Although the names of Scott and Grimm may be enumerated amongst the
writers who have acknowledged the ethnological and philosophic value of
traditional nursery literature, it is difficult to impress on the public
mind the importance of a subject apparently in the last degree trifling
and insignificant, or to induce an opinion that the jingles and simple
narratives of a garrulous nurse can possess a worth beyond the circle of
their own immediate influence.
But they who despise the humbler sources of literary illustration must
be content to be told, and hereafter to learn, that traces of the
simplest stories and most absurd superstitions are often more effectual
in proving the affinity of different races, and determining other
literary questions, than a host of grander and more imposing monuments.
The history of fiction is continually efficacious in discussions of this
kind, and the identities of puerile sayings frequently answer a similar
purpose. Both, indeed, are of high value. The humble chap-book is found
to be descended not only from medieval romance, but also not
unfrequently from the more ancient mythology, whilst some of our
simplest nursery-rhymes are chanted to this day by the children of
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, a fact strikingly exhibiting their great
antiquity and remote origin.
The subject, however curious and interesting, is far too diffuse to be
investigated at any length in a work like the present; and, indeed, the
materials are for the most part so scattered and difficult of access,
that it would require the research of many years to accomplish the task
satisfactorily. I shall, then, content myself with indicating a few of
the most striking analogies between the rhymes of foreign countries and
those of our own, for this portion of the inquiry has been scarcely
alluded to by my predecessors. With regard to the tales, a few notices
of their antiquity will be found in the prefaces or notes to the stories
themselves, and few readers will require to be informed that
Whittington's cat realized his price in India, and that Arlotto related
the story long before the Lord Mayor was born; that Jack the
Giant-killer is founded on an Edda; or that the slipper of Cinderella
finds a parallel in the history of the celebrated Rhodope. To enter into
these discussions would be merely to repeat an oft-told tale, and I
prefer offering a few notes which will be found to possess a little more
novelty.
Of the many who must recollect the nursery jingles of their youth, how
few in number are those who have suspected their immense age, or that
they were ever more than unmeaning nonsense; far less that their
creation belongs to a period before that at which the authentic records
of our history commence. Yet there is no exaggeration in such a
statement. We find the same trifles which erewhile lulled or amused the
English infant, are current in slightly varied forms throughout the
North of Europe; we know that they have been sung in the northern
countries for centuries, and that there has been no modern outlet for
their dissemination across the German Ocean. The most natural inference
is to adopt the theory of a Teutonic origin, and thus give to every
genuine child-rhyme, found current in England and Sweden, an immense
antiquity. There is nothing improbable in the supposition, for the
preservation of the relics of primitive literature often bears an
inverse ratio to their importance. Thus, for example, a well-known
English nursery rhyme tells us,—
There was an old man,
And he had a calf,
And that's half;
He took him out of the stall,
And put him on the wall,
And that's all.
A composition apparently of little interest or curiosity; but Arwidsson,
unacquainted with the English rhyme, produces the following as current
in Sweden, Svenska Fornsånger, iii. 488, which bears far too striking a
similarity to the above to have had a different origin,—
Gubben och gumman hade en kalf,
Och nu är visan half!
Och begge så körde de halfven i vall,
Och nu är visan all!
We could not, perhaps, select a better instance of this kind of
similarity in nepial songs as current throughout the great northern
states of Europe than the pretty stanza on the ladybird. Variations of
this familiar song belong to the vernacular literature of England,
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. The version at present current in the
North of England is as follows:
Lady-cow, lady-cow, fly thy way home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone;
All but one that ligs under a stone,
Fly thee home, lady-cow, ere it be gone![1]
[Footnote 1: In Norfolk the lady-bird is called
_burny-bee_, and the following lines are current:
Burnie bee, burnie bee,
Tell me when your wedding be.
If it be to-morrow day,
Take your wings and fly away.]
These lines are said by children, when they throw the beautiful little
insect into the air, to make it take flight. Two Scottish variations are
given by Mr. Chambers, p. 170. In Germany it is called the Virgin Mary's
chafer, _Marienwürmchen_, or the May-chafer, _Maikäferchen_, or the
gold-bird, _Guldvogel_. In Sweden, gold-hen, gold-cow, or the Virgin
Mary's maid. In Denmark, our Lord's hen, or our Lady's hen. We may first
mention the German song translated by Taylor as frequently alluded to by
writers on this subject. The second verse is the only one preserved in
England.
Lady-bird! lady-bird! pretty one! stay!
Come sit on my finger, so happy and gay;
With me shall no mischief betide thee;
No harm would I do thee, no foeman is near,
I only would gaze on thy beauties so dear,
Those beautiful winglets beside thee.
Lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home;
Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam!
List! list! to their cry and bewailing!
The pitiless spider is weaving their doom,
Then, lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home!
Hark! hark! to thy children's bewailing.
Fly back again, back again, lady-bird dear!
Thy neighbours will merrily welcome thee here;
With them shall no perils attend thee!
They'll guard thee so safely from danger or care,
They'll gaze on thy beautiful winglets so fair,
And comfort, and love, and befriend thee!
In Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Arnim und Brentano, 1808, iii. 82, 83, 90, we
have three German songs relating to the lady-bird. The first two of
these are here given:
_Der Guldvogel._
Guldvogel, flieg aus,
Flieg auf die Stangen,
Käsebrode langen;
Mir eins, dir eins,
Alle gute G'sellen eins.
"Gold-bird, get thee gone, fly to thy perch, bring cheese-cakes, one for
me, one for thee, and one for all good people."
Maikäferchen, Maikäferchen, fliege weg!
Dein Häusgen brennt,
Dein Mütterchen flennt,
Dein Vater sitzt auf der Schwelle,
Flieg in Himmel aus der Hölle.
"May-bird, May-bird, fly away. Thy house burns, thy mother weeps, thy
father stays at his threshold, fly from hell into heaven!"—The third is
not so similar to our version. Another German one is given in Kuhn und
Schwark, Norddeutsche Sagen, 1848, p. 375:
Maikäferchen, fliege,
Dein Vater ist im Kriege,
Dein Mutter ist in Pommerland,
Pommerland ist abgebrannt!
Maikäferchen, fliege.
"May-bird, fly. Thy father is in the war, thy mother is in Pomerania,
Pomerania is burnt! May-bird, fly."—See, also, Erk und Irmer, Die
Deutschen Volkslieder, Berlin, 1839, iv. 7, Das Maikäferlied. For the
two pretty Swedish songs which follow I am indebted to the MS. of Mr.
Stephens. The first is common in the southern parts of that country, the
other in the northern.
Guld-höna, guld-ko!
Flyg öster, flyg vester,
Dit du flyger der bor din älskade!
"Gold-hen, gold-cow! fly east, fly west, you will fly where your
sweetheart is."
Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga!
Flyg öster, flyg vester,
Flyg dit der min käresta bor![2]
[Footnote 2: This is a very remarkable
coincidence with an English rhyme:
Fly, lady-bird, fly!
North, south, east, or west;
Fly to the pretty girl
That I love best.]
"Fly, our holy Virgin's bower-maid! fly east, fly west, fly where my
loved-one dwelleth." In Denmark they sing (Thiele, iii. 134):
Fly, fly, our Lord's own hen!
To-morrow the weather fair will be,
And eke the next day too.[3]
[Footnote 3: The lady-bird, observes Mr.
Chambers, is always connected with fine weather
in Germany and the north.]
Accumulative tales are of very high antiquity. The original of "the
House that Jack Built" is well known to be an old Hebrew hymn in Sepher
Haggadah. It is also found in Danish, but in a somewhat shorter form;
(See Thiele, Danske Folkesagn, II. iii. 146, _Der har du det Huus som
Jacob bygde_;) and the English version is probably very old, as may be
inferred from the mention of "the priest all shaven and shorn." A
version of the old woman and her sixpence occurs in the same collection,
II. iv. 161, _Konen och Grisen Fick_, the old wife and her piggy
Fick,—"There was once upon a time an old woman who had a little pig
hight Fick, who would never go home late in the evening. So the old
woman said to her stick:
'Stick, beat Fick, I say!
Piggie will not go home to-day!'"
This chant-tale is also common in Sweden. One copy has been printed by
N. Lilja in his Violen en Samling Jullekar, Barnsånger och Sagor, i. 20,
_Gossen och Geten Näppa_, the boy and the goat Neppa,—"There was once a
yeoman who had a goat called Neppa, but Neppa would never go home from
the field. The yeoman was therefore forced to promise his daughter in
marriage to whoever could get Neppa home. Many tried their fortune in
vain, but at last a sharp boy offered to ward the goat. All the next day
he followed Neppa, and when evening came, he said, 'Now will we
homeward go?' but Neppa answered, 'Pluck me a tuft or so,'" &c. The
story is conducted in an exactly similar manner in which the
_dénoûement_ is brought about in the English tale.[4]
[Footnote 4: Two other variations occur in
Arwidsson, Svenska Fornsånger, 1842, iii. 387-8,
and Mr. Stephens tells me he has a MS. Swedish
copy entitled the Schoolboy and the Birch. It is
also well known in Alsace, and is printed in that
dialect in Stöber's Elsassisches Volksbüchlein,
1842, pp. 93-5. Compare, also, Kuhn und Schwark,
Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche, 1848,
p. 358, "Die frâ, dos hippel un dos hindel."]
The well-known song of "There was a lady lov'd a swine," is found in an
unpublished play of the time of Charles I. in the Bodleian Library, MS.
Bodl. 30:
There was a lady lov'd a hogge;
Hony, quoth shee,
Woo't thou lie with me to-night?
Ugh, quoth hee.
A similar song is current in Sweden, as we learn from Arwidsson, Svenska
Fornsånger, iii. 482, who gives a version in which an old woman, who had
no children, took a little foal, which she called Longshanks, and rocked
and nursed it as if it had been her own child:[5]
Gumman ville vagga
Och inga barn hade hon;
Då tog hon in
Fölungen sin,
Och lade den i vaggan sin.
Vyssa, vyssa, långskånken min,
Långa ben bar du;
Lefver du till sommaren,
Blir du lik far din.
[Footnote 5: It is still more similar to a pretty
little song in Chambers, p. 188, commencing,
"There was a miller's dochter."]
Another paradoxical song-tale, respecting the old woman who went to
market, and had her petticoats cut off at her knees "by a pedlar whose
name was Stout," is found in some shape or other in most countries in
Europe. A Norwegian version is given by Asbjörnsen og Moe, Norske
Folkeeventyr, 1843, and, if I recollect rightly, it is also found in
Grimm.
The riddle-rhyme of "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" is, in one form or
other, a favorite throughout Europe. A curious Danish version is given
by Thiele, iii. 148:
Lille Trille
Laae paa Hylde;
Lille Trille
Faldt ned af Hylde.
Ingen Mand
I hele Land
Lille Trille curere kan.
Which may be thus translated:
Little Trille
Lay on a shelf:
Little Trille
Thence pitch'd himself:
Not all the men
In our land, I ken,
Can put Little Trille right again.
And Mr. Stephens has preserved two copies in his MS. Swedish
collections. The first is from the province of Upland:
Thille Lille
Satt på take';
Thille Lille
Trilla' ner;
Ingen läkare i hela verlden
Thille Lille laga kan.
Thille Lille
On the roof-tree sat;
Thille Lille
Down fell flat;
Never a leech the world can show
That Thille Lille can heal, I trow.
Another from the province of Småland:
Lille Bulle
Trilla' ner å skulle;
Ingen man i detta lan'
Lille Bulle laga kan.
Down on the shed
Lille Bulle rolled;
Never a man in all this land
Lille Bulle helpen can.
It will now only be necessary to refer to the similarities pointed out
in other parts of this work, to convince the reader that, at all events,
a very fair case is made out for the truth of the positions we have
contended for, if, indeed, sufficient evidence of their absolute truth
is not adduced. They who are accustomed to researches of this kind, are
too well aware of the facility with which the most plausible theories
are frequently nullified by subsequent discovery; but there appears in
the present case to be numerous conditions insoluble by any other
supposition than that of a common origin, and we are therefore fully
justified in adopting it as proved.
Turning to the nursery rhymes of our own country, it will tend
materially to strengthen the results to which we have arrived, if we
succeed in proving their antiquity in this island. We shall be enabled
to do so satisfactorily, and to show that they are not the modern
nonsense some folks may pronounce them to be. They illustrate the
history and manners of the people for centuries. Here, for instance, is
a relic in the form of a nursery rhyme, but in reality part of a
political song, referring to the rebellious times of Richard the
Second.[6]
My father he died, I cannot tell how,
But he left me six horses to drive out my plough!
With a wimmy lo! wommy lo! _Jack Straw, blazey-boys!_
Wimmy lo! wommy lo! wob, wob, wob!
[Footnote 6: I am here, and in a few other cases,
quoting from myself. It may be necessary to say
so, for my former collections on this subject
have been appropriated—"convey, the wise it
call"—in a work by a learned Doctor, the preface
to which is an amusing instance of plagiarism.]
An infant of the nineteenth century recalling our recollection to Jack
Straw and his "blazey-boys!" Far better this than teaching history with
notes "suited to the capacity of the youngest." Another refers to Joanna
of Castile, who visited the court of Henry the Seventh in 1506:
I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear
But a golden nutmeg and a silver pear;
The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me,
And all for the sake of my little nut-tree.