[53] The song exhibits numerous marks of antiquity. "Picks up a pin"
was originally, no doubt, "pulls at the pin." The word "garret" here
appears to correspond to the Scandinavian "high-loft," the upper part
and living-room of an ancient house. The third verse is a very ancient
ballad commonplace--
Shee's as soft as any silk,
And as white as any milk.
"Ballad of Kinge Adler," in the Percy MS.
Instead of "Water, water, wild-flowers," as printed on the next page,
we find in Philadelphia, "_Lily, lily, white-flower_," which may have
been the original, and reminds us of the refrains of certain ballads.
In Yorkshire, England, "_Willy, willy, wall-flower_."
A specimen of the quintessence of absurdity is the following
street-song:
Swallow, swallow, weeping
About a willow tree,
All the boys in Fiftieth Street
Are dying down below;
Excepting ---- ----
His love he can't deny,
For he loves ---- ----
And she loves him beside, etc.
Notwithstanding the vulgarity of these stanzas, and of others
which are employed for the same purpose, the practice which they
illustrate--namely, the adaptation of a ballad to the dance by uniting
with it a game-rhyme--is no doubt ancient. We have other examples in
the numbers which follow.
[54] "Lines told to Lydia Jackson (now Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord,
Mass.) by her aunt, Joanna Cotton, in 1806-7-8, in Plymouth."
[55] Observe how the nursery song differs from the children's dance.
The nurse wishes to persuade the little child in her lap that _paring
nails_ is a mark of great regard and affection, as, while performing
that office, she chants the ballad to amuse her charge.
[56] "It is on a summer's tide, when ladies' hearts are free and gay,
when they go arrayed in ermine and silk. The hart strikes his horn
against the linden, and the fish leaps in the stream."--_Icelandic
Ballad._
[57] Some little friends, feeling the unsatisfactoriness of the
fragment, added a couplet to the dance--
O Mary, O Mary, your true love's not slain,
The king sends you a letter _to turn round again_.
[58]
Eh! la _clinquet_ (?) de lettres, que nouvelle est celle-ci?
Eh! ce sont des nouvelles qu'il faut changer d'ami.
[59] Or, "Three gold wishes, three good kisses, and a slice of
_ginger_!"
[60] Or, "strong."
[61] Or, "king's daughter," "queen's daughter."
[62] See French ballad referred to in the Appendix.
[63] Or, "King _George's_ son." For convenience sake, the last couplet
of the first version is printed with the melody.
[64]
For if my mother should chance to know,
She'd make my blood to fall.--_Version of Sir Egerton Brydges._
[65]
And first came out the thick, thick blood,
And syne came out the thin;
And syne came out the bonny heart's blood,
There was nae mair within.
_Jamieson._
[66]
When bells were rung, and mass was sung,
And a' the bairns came hame,
When every lady gat hame her son,
The lady Maisry gat nane.
_Jamieson._
[67] Sallow; willow.
[68] In other versions it is "Testament" or "Catechism."
[69] Keene, New Hampshire.