_Source_.--I have combined the Irish version given by Dr. Hyde in his
_Leabhar Sgeul._, and translated by him for Mr. Yeats' _Irish Folk and
Fairy Tales_, and the Scotch version given in Gaelic and English by
Campbell, No. viii.
_Parallels_.--Two English versions are given in my _Eng. Fairy Tales_,
No. iv., "The Old Woman and her Pig," and xxxiv., "The Cat and the
Mouse," where see notes for other variants in these isles. M. Cosquin,
in his notes to No. xxxiv., of his _Contes de Lorraine_, t. ii. pp.
35-41, has drawn attention to an astonishing number of parallels
scattered through all Europe and the East (_cf._, too, Crane, _Ital.
Pop. Tales_, notes, 372-5). One of the earliest allusions to the jingle
is in _Don Quixote_, pt. 1, c. xvi.: "Y asi como suele decirse _el gato
al rato, et rato á la cuerda, la cuerda al palo_, daba el arriero á
Sancho, Sancho á la moza, la moza á él, el ventero á la moza." As I
have pointed out, it is used to this day by Bengali women at the end of
each folk-tale they recite (L. B. Day, _Folk-Tales of Bengal_, Pref.).
_Remarks_.--Two ingenious suggestions have been made as to the origin
of this curious jingle, both connecting it with religious ceremonies:
(1) Something very similar occurs in Chaldaic at the end of the Jewish
_Hagada_, or domestic ritual for the Passover night. It has, however,
been shown that this does not occur in early MSS. or editions, and was
only added at the end to amuse the children after the service, and was
therefore only a translation or adaptation of a current German form of
the jingle; (2) M. Basset, in the _Revue des Traditions populaires_,
1890, t. v. p. 549, has suggested that it is a survival of the old
Greek custom at the sacrifice of the Bouphonia for the priest to
contend that _he_ had not slain the sacred beast, the axe declares that
the handle did it, the handle transfers the guilt further, and so on.
This is ingenious, but fails to give any reasonable account of the
diffusion of the jingle in countries which have had no historic
connection with classical Greece.