AN ANCIENT ENGLISH RHYME
From which came the well-known nursery tale of--
"A frog, who would a-wooing go.
Hey, oh! says Rowly.
Whether his mother would let him or no,
With a Rowly Powly Gammon and Spinach,
Hey, oh! says Anthony Rowly."
In 1549 the Scottish shepherds sang a song, entitled "The frog that came
to the myl dur." In 1580 a later ballad, called "A most strange wedding
of a frog and a mouse," was licensed by the Stationers' Company. There
is a second version extant in _Pills to Purge Melancholy_.
The following was commonly sung in the early years of Henry VIII.'s
reign:--
"It was a frog in the well, Humbledum, humbledum,
And the merry mouse in the mill, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.
The frog he would a-wooing ride, Humbledum, humbledum,
Sword and buckler by his side, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.
When upon his high horse set, Humbledum, humbledum,
His boots they shone as black as jet, Tweedle, tweedle, twino.
"Then he came to the merry mill-pin,
Saying, 'Lady mouse, be you within?'
Then out came the dusty mouse,
Saying, 'I'm the lady of this house.'
"'Hast thou any mind of me?' asked the gallant Sir Froggy.
'I have e'en great mind of thee,' her ladyship replied.
'Who shall make our marriage?' suggested the frog.
'Our lord, the rat!' exclaimed the mouse.
'What shall we have for supper?' the thoughtful frog exclaimed.
'Barley, beans, and bread and butter!' generously replied Miss Mouse.
But when the supper they were at,
The frog, the mouse, and the rat,
In came Gib, our cat,
And caught the mouse by the back;
Then did they separate.
The frog leapt on the floor so flat,
In came Dick, our drake,
And drew the frog into the lake.
The rat ran up the wall,
And so the company parted all."
The rhyming tale of "The frog who would a-wooing go" is similar in every
way to the above.
In Japan one of the most notable fairy-tales relates a story of a
mouse's wedding.
SONGS OF LONDON BOYS IN TUDOR TIMES.
In the next two reigns, Edward VI. and Philip and Mary's, the musical
abilities of the London boy were carefully looked after and cultivated.
The ballads he sang recommended him to employers wanting apprentices.
Christ's Blue Coat School and Bridewell Seminary offered unusual
facilities for voice training. One happy illustration of the customs of
the sixteenth century was the habit of the barber-surgeon's boy, who
amused the customers, waiting for "next turn" to be shaved or bled, with
his ballad or rhyming verse; and a boy with a good voice proved a rare
draw to the "bloods" about town, and those who frequented the taverns
and ordinaries within the City.
In the next reign the condition of the poor was much improved; the
effect of the land sales in Henry VII.'s reign, when the moneyed
classes purchased two-thirds of the estates of the nobility, and spent
their amassed wealth in cultivating and improving the neglected lands.
This factor--as well as the cessation of the Wars of the Roses--was
beginning to work a lasting benefit to the poor, as the street cries of
1557 show, for, according to the register of the Stationers' Company
that year, a licence was granted to John Wallye and Mrs. Toye to print a
ballad, entitled--
"Who lyve so mery and make such sporte
As they that be of the poorest sort?"
"Who liveth so merry in all the land
As doth the poor widow who selleth the sand?
And ever she singeth, as I can guess,
'Will you buy my sand--any sand--mistress?'
_Chorus._
"Who would desire a pleasanter thing
Than all the day long to do nothing but sing?
Who liveth so merry and maketh such sport
As those who be of the poorer sort?"
Even Daniel De Foe, writing one hundred and twenty years after, paid a
passing tribute to Queen Elizabeth, and said "that the faint-hearted
economists of 1689 would show something worthy of themselves if they
employed the poor to the same glorious advantage as did Queen
Elizabeth."
Going back to the centuries prior to the Tudor period, one is reminded
that all the best efforts at minstrelsy--song, glee, or romance--came
from the northern counties, or from just on either side the borders.
The prevalence of a northern dialect in the compositions show this
suggestion to be in a great degree real. The poems of minstrelsy,
however, claim something more than dialect--the martial spirit, ever
fever-heat on the borders of the kingdoms of England and Scotland; the
age of chivalry furnishing the minstrel with the subject of his poem.
But with the strife of war ended, on Henry VII.'s accession, ballads
took the place of war-songs in the heart affections of the people, and
they sang songs of peace and contentment. Bard, scald, minstrel,
gleeman, with their heroic rhymes and long metrical romances, gave way
in the evolution of song and harmony to the ballad-monger with his
licence. However, in turn they became an intolerable nuisance, and a wag
wrote of them in 1740--
"Of all sorts of wit he's most fond of a ballad,
But asses choose thistles instead of a salad."
Another of the wayside songs of Henry VIII.'s time, sung by man, woman,
and child, ran--
"Quoth John to Joan, Wilt thou have me?
I prithee, now wilt? and I'se marry with thee
My cow, my calf, my house, my rents,
And all my land and tenements--
Oh, say, my Joan, will that not do?
I cannot come each day to woo.
I've corn and hay in the barn hard by,
And three fat hogs pent up in a sty;
I have a mare, and she's coal black;
I ride on her tail to save her back.
I have cheese upon the shelf,
And I cannot eat it all myself.
I've three good marks that lie in a rag
In the nook of the chimney instead of a bag."
The London surgeon-barber's boy pleased his master's patrons with a
whole host of similar extravagances, but he was not alone in the habit,
for so usual was it for the poorest of the poor to indulge in mirth,
that literary men of the day wrote against the practice.
In a black-letter book--a copy of which is in the British Museum, date
1560--and entitled, "The longer thou livest more fool thou art," W.
Wager, the author, says in the prologue--
"Good parents in good manners do instruct their child,
Correcting him when he beginneth to grow wild."
The subject matter of this book also gives a fair view of the customs
and habits of the boys of that age. In the character of Moros, a youth
enters the stage, "counterfeiting a vain gesture and foolish
countenance, singing the 'foote' or burden of many songs, as fools are
wont."
Amongst the many rhymes enumerated by Moros, which he claims were taught
to him by his mother, occur: "Broome on the hill," "Robin lend me thy
bow," "There was a maid came out of Kent," "Dainty love, dainty love,"
"Come o'er the bourne, Bessie," and
"Tom a Lin, and his wife and his wife's mother,
They all went over the bridge together;
The bridge was broken and they fell in,
'The devil go with all,' quoth Tom a Lin."
Another version, more particularly the Irish one, runs--
"Bryan O'Lynn, and his wife and wife's mother,
All went over the bridge together;
The bridge was loose, they all fell in,
'What a precious concern,' cried Bryan O'Lynn.
"Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,
So he got a sheep's skin to make him a pair."
This rhyme is evidently much older than the Tudor age, and one is
reminded of the time when cloth and woollen goods were not much used by
the lower classes. The Tzigane of Hungary to-day wears his sheep-skin
breeches, and hands them down to posterity, with a plentiful supply of
quick-silver and grease to keep them soft and clean. "Bye baby bunting"
and the little "hare skin" is the other nursery rhyme having a
reference to skins of animals being used for clothing. But "Baby
bunting" has no purpose to point to, unless indeed the habits of the
Esquimaux are taken in account. In the list of nursery songs sung by
children in Elizabeth's reign, the following extract from "The longer
thou livest the more foole thou art" gives four:--
"I have twentie mo songs yet,
A fond woman to my mother;
As I war wont in her lappe to sit,
She taught me these and many other.
"I can sing a song of 'Robin Redbreast,'
And 'My litle pretie Nightingale,'
'There dwelleth a Jolly Fisher here by the west,'
Also, 'I com to drink som of you Christmas ale.'
"Whan I walke by myselfe alone,
It doth me good my songs to render;
Such pretie thinges would soone be gon
If I should not sometime them remembre."
To get back again to the true nursery lyrics, one more marriage game of
this period is given, entitled--
"WE'LL HAVE A WEDDING AT OUR HOUSE."
"A cat came fiddling out of a barn
With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;
She could pipe nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,
The mouse hath married the bumble-bee.
Pipe, cat; dance, mouse;
We'll have a wedding at our house."