Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes Part 12

Harl. 1962):--

Hitty Pitty within the wall, Hitty Pitty without the wall; If you touch Hitty Pitty, Hitty Pitty will bite you. (A nettle, 1849, p. 149.)

This verse is sometimes used in playing _Hide and Seek_ as a warning to the player who approaches the place that is "hot" (1894, I, 211). A variation of the word is _Highty-Tighty_, which is preserved in the following rhyme:--

Highty, tighty, paradighty, clothed in green, The king could not read it, no more could the queen; They sent for a wise man out of the East, Who said it had horns, but was not a beast. (1842, p. 118.)

The answer is "A holly tree."

Another rhyming compound is preserved in the riddle-rhyme on the sunbeam:--

Hick-a-more, Hack-a-more Hung on a kitchen door; Nothing so long, and nothing so strong, As Hick-a-more, Hack-a-more Hung on the kitchen door. (1846, p. 207.)

The following riddle-rhyme preserves the word lilly-low, which is the north-country term for the flame of a candle:--

Lilly-low, lilly-low, set up on end, See little baby go out at town end. (A candle, 1849, p. 146.)

Another riddle on the candle, which also stands in MS. Harl. 1962, and has found its way into nursery collections, is:--

Little Nancy Etticoat with a white petticoat, And a red nose; The longer she stands, the shorter she grows. (1842, p. 114.)

This recalls a riddle current in Devons.h.i.+re, where the sky is called widdicote:--

Widdicote, widdicote, over cote hang; Nothing so broad, and nothing so lang As Widdicote, etc. (1892, p. 333.)

All these riddle-rhymes are based on primitive conceptions, and all have parallels in the nursery lore of other countries. The rhyme on Hoddy-Doddy in Norwegian is simply descriptive; in France it is told in the form of words exchanged between _Noiret_, "Blacky," the pot, and _Rouget_, "Ruddy," the fire. In Italy the Pot, the Smoke, and the Fire are described as three sisters. Again, the riddle-rhyme on the candle is told in Swabia and in France. But in no case are the foreign parallels as close as in the riddle-rhyme of Humpty-Dumpty, and in no case do they preserve the same interesting allusions.

CHAPTER XI

c.u.mULATIVE PIECES

We now turn to rhymes which dwell on different ideas and present life under other aspects. In these rhymes there is much on spells, on the magic properties of numbers, and on sacrificial hunting. A fatalistic tendency underlies many of these rhymes, and there are conscious efforts to avert danger.

The different range of ideas which are here expressed is reflected in the form of verse in which they are presented. While the rhymes. .h.i.therto discussed are set in verse which depends for its consistency on tail rhyme and a.s.sonance, the pieces that deal with the magic properties of things and with hunting, are mostly set in a form of verse that depends for its consistency on repet.i.tion and c.u.mulation. This difference in form is probably due to the different origin of these pieces. Rhymed verse may have originated in dancing and singing--c.u.mulative verse in recitation and instruction.

In c.u.mulative recitation one sentence is uttered and repeated, a second sentence is uttered and repeated, then the first sentence is said; a third sentence is uttered and repeated, followed by the second and the first. Thus each sentence adds to the piece and carries it back to the beginning. Supposing each letter to stand for a sentence, the form of recitation can thus be described: A, a; B, b, a; C, c, b, a; D, d, c, b, a; etc. This manner of recitation is well known among ourselves, but I know of no word to designate it. In Brittany the form of recitation is known as _chant de grenouille_, i.e. frog-chant. A game of forfeits was known in the eighteenth century, which was called _The Gaping Wide-mouthed Waddling Frog_, in which the verses were recited in exactly the same manner. We shall return to it later. A relation doubtless exists between this game and the French expression frog-chant.

Among our most familiar pieces that are set in c.u.mulative form are _The Story of the Old Woman and Her Pig_ and _This is the House that Jack built_. They both consist of narrative, and are told as stories. _This is the House that Jack built_ first appeared in print as a toy-book that was issued by Marshall at his printing office, Aldermary Churchyard. It is ill.u.s.trated with cuts, and its date is about 1770. Perhaps the story is referred to in the _Boston News Letter_ (No. 183) of 12-19 April, 1739, in which the reviewer of Tate and Brady's Version of the Psalms remarks that this "makes our children think of the tune of their vulgar playsong so like it: this is the man all forlorn." The sentence looks like a variation of the line "this is the maiden all forlorn" in _This is the House that Jack built_.

In 1819 there was published in London a satire by Hone, called _The Political House that Jack built_. It was ill.u.s.trated by Cruikshank, and went through fifty-four editions. In form it imitates the playsong, which was doubtless as familiar then as it is now.

The playsong in the form published by Marshall begins:--

This is the house that Jack built,-- This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,-- This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,--

which is followed by the cat that killed the rat--the dog that worried the cat--the cow that tossed the dog--the maiden that milked the cow--the man that kissed the maid--the priest that married them. Here it ended. But a further line added by Halliwell (1842, p. 222) mentioned the c.o.c.k that crowed on the morn of the wedding-day, and a lady of over seventy has supplied me with one more line, on the knife that killed the c.o.c.k. She tells me that she had the story from her nurse, and that she does not remember seeing it in print. The version she repeated in c.u.mulative form, told to me, ended as follows:--

This is the knife with a handle of horn, that killed the c.o.c.k that crowed in the morn, that wakened the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, unto the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with a crumpled horn, that tossed the dog over the barn, that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

The greater part of this piece consists of rhymed verse, and deals with matters of courts.h.i.+p. The idea of a c.o.c.k sacrificed on the wedding-day is certainly heathen in origin, but its introduction forms a new departure when we come to compare this piece with its foreign parallels and with the story of _The Old Woman and Her Pig_. These pieces are all set in the same form, and all introduce a regular sequence of relative powers.

_The Old Woman and Her Pig_ was first printed by Halliwell (1842, p.

219). It tells how the woman found sixpence, and how she set out for market, and bought a pig which on the way back refused to jump over the stile. In order to break the spell that had fallen on it, she summoned to her aid: dog--stick--fire--water--ox--butcher--rope--rat--cat--cow.

The cow finally gave the milk required by the cat, which set the other powers going, and thus enabled the woman to get home that night.

Halliwell was impressed by the antiquity of this sequence, and included in his collection a translation of a Hebrew chant which has considerable likeness to the tale of _The Old Woman and Her Pig_. This chant is told in the first person. It begins:--

A kid, a kid my father bought For two pieces of money, A kid, a kid.

Then came the cat and ate the kid, That my father bought, For two pieces of money.

A kid, a kid. (1842, p. 6.)

It further introduces dog--staff--fire--water--ox--butcher--angel of death--Holy One.

The Hebrew chant of the kid was printed in Venice as far back as 1609, and was made the subject of the learned Latin dissertation _De Haedo_ by Probst von der Hardt in 1727 (R., p. 153). It was again discussed by P.

N. Leberecht in 1731.[51] The chant forms part of the Jewish liturgy, and is still recited in the original Hebrew or in the vernacular as part of a religious ceremonial at Easter. Opinions on the origin and the meaning of the chant differ. One learned rabbi interpreted it as setting forth how each power in creation is kept within bounds by a power that stands above it. It teaches how he who goes wrong is at the mercy of one stronger than himself. But according to another interpretation the Father who bought the kid was Jehovah himself, the kid was the Hebrew, the cat represented the a.s.syrians, the dog the Babylonians, and so forth; and the whole poem described the position of the Jews at the time of the Crusades.

[51] The article by Leberecht is in _Der Christliche Reformator_, Leipzig, 1731, XVII, 28.

The Hebrew chant and its relation to _The Old Woman and her Pig_ engaged the attention of Professor Tylor, who remarked on the solemn ending of the Hebrew chant, which according to him may incline us to think that we really have before us this composition in something like its first form.

"If so," he says, "then it follows that our familiar tale of the Old Woman who couldn't get the kid (_or_ pig) over the stile, must be considered as a broken-down adaptation of this old Jewish poem."[52]

[52] Tylor, E. B., _Primitive Culture_, II, 86.

But the tale of the Old Woman taken in conjunction with _This is the House that Jack built_ and its numerous foreign parallels, shows that these sequences of relative powers, far from being broken-down adaptations, are at least as meaningful as the Hebrew chant. For the underlying conception in all cases is that a spell has fallen on an object which man is appropriating to his use. The spell extends to everything, be it man or beast, that comes within the range of its influence, and the unmaking of the spell necessitates going back step by step to the point at which it originated.

Halliwell compared a piece current in Denmark with _This is the House that Jack built_:--

Der har du det haus som Jacob bygde.

"Here hast thou the house that Jacob built."[53]

[53] Halliwell, 1849, p. 6, citing Thiele, II, 3, 146. I cannot find this book.

Many other versions of this tale are current in Germany and Scandinavia.

In them it is sometimes a question of a house, sometimes of corn, oftenest of cutting oats or of garnering pears. The c.u.mulative form is throughout adhered to. One German piece called _Ist alles verlorn_, "all is lost," begins:--

Es kam eine Maus gegangen In unser Kornehaus, Die nahm das Korn gefangen, In unserm Kornehaus.

Die Maus das Korn, Ist alles verlorn In unserm Kornehaus. (Sim., p. 256.)

"There came a mouse into our corn-house, she seized the corn in our corn-house. The mouse, the corn, now all is lost in our corn-house."

The other powers are rat, cat, fox, wolf, bear, man, maid. This piece, like _This is the House that Jack built_, ends abruptly.

Among the less primitive variations of the tale is one recorded in Sonneberg (S., p. 102), and another in the north of France, which both subst.i.tute the name of Peter for that of Jack, that is a Christian name for a heathen one. In France the piece is called _La Mouche_, literally "the fly," but its contents indicate that not _mouche_ but the Latin _mus_ (mouse) was originally meant. The tale departs from the usual form, and has a refrain:--