Harry Whistle, Tommy Thistle,
Harry Whible, Tommy Thible,
And little Oker-bell.
A game with the five toes, each toe being touched in succession as these
names are cried. "This song affords a proof of the connexion between the
English and Scandinavian rhymes. The last line, as it now stands,
appears to mean nothing. The word _oker_, however, is the A.-S. æcer,
Icel. akr, Dan. ager, and Swed. åker, pronounced _oker_, a field, and
the flower is the field-bell."—Mr. Stephens's MS. The following lines
are also used in a play with the toes:
Shoe the colt, shoe!
Shoe the wild mare!
Put a sack on her back,
See if she'll bear.
If she'll bear,
We'll give her some grains;
If she won't bear,
We'll dash out her brains.
There are many various versions of this song in English, and it also
exists in Danish (Thiele, iii. 133).
Skoe min best!
Hvem kan bedst?
Det kan vor Præst!
Nei mæn kan ban ej!
For det kan vor smed,
Som boer ved Leed.
Shoe my horse!
Who can best?
Why, our priest!
Not he, indeed!
But our smith can,
He lives at Leed.
Perhaps, however, this will be considered more like the common rhyme,
"Robert Barnes, Fellow fine," printed in the 'Nursery Rhymes of
England,' p. 166. An analogous verse is found in the nursery anthology
of Berlin (Kuhn, Kinderlieder, 229), and in that of Sweden (Lilja, p.
14),—
Sko, sko min lille häst,
I morgon frosten blir' vår gäst,
Då bli' hästskorna dyra,
Två styfver för fyra.
Shoe, shoe my little horse,
To-morrow it will be frosty:
Then will horse-shoes be dear,
Two will cost a stiver.
English nurses use the following lines, when a child's shoe is tight,
and they pat the foot to induce him to allow it to be tried on:
Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe,
Give it a stitch and that will do.
Here's a nail, and there's a prod,
And now my shoe is well shod.