A History of Nursery Rhymes Part 13

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; Three score men, and three score more, Cannot make Humpty Dumpty as before again."

"An egg."

Or--

"And all the king's horses, and all the king's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Plutarch says of Homer that he died of chagrin, being unable to solve a riddle.

The Phnix myth, once believed in by the Egyptian priests, is now, and had even so long ago as in Herodotus' time, degenerated into a mere child-story of a bird, who lived, and died, and rose again from its own ashes. As a relic of a mysterious faith, this fabulous bird has come down to us with diminished glory each century. Old Herodotus, the father of history, tells us that he saw it once--not the bird itself, but a painting of it--at Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, in Egypt. Even this old Greek historian could not quite believe the current story in his day concerning this bird; that it was supposed to revisit the earth after a five-hundred-year sojourn in the land of G.o.ds was to him, at least, a little strange. Pliny, the Roman, likewise gives a description of it. "I have been told," he writes, "it was as big as an eagle, yellow in colour, glittering as gold about the neck, with a body-plumage of deep red-purple. Its tail is sky-blue, with some of the pennae of a light rose colour. The head is adorned with a crest and pinnacle beautiful to the sight."

Another ancient retells the story somewhat different to both the Greek and Roman historians. Thus runs the Indian version. Bear in mind, however, before reading it, that, like the Second Stone Age people, it was the habit of many races in India to cremate their dead:--

"A high funeral pyre is erected of dry wood, on which the body of the dead is laid, and in course of time after igniting the f.a.ggots the corpse is consumed. While this cineration is going on vultures and carrion fowl not infrequently pounce down upon the body, and tear away pieces of flesh from the ghastly, smoking corpse. These charred parts of the body they carry away to their nests to feast upon at leisure. But oftentimes dire results follow; the home of sun-dried sticks and litter ignites, and the bird is seen by some of the superst.i.tious peasantry to rise up out of fire and smoke and disappear."

Then the Phnix fable comes to mind, "It is the sun-G.o.d; he has thrown fire and consumed the nest, and the old bird," and they hastily conclude that the bird they just now beheld flying away is a new one, and has, in fact, arisen out of the ashes they witnessed falling from the branches of the tall tree. The Phnix in truth!

The German child's rhyme, given by Grimm brothers, of

"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home,"

is not out of place here. It evidences a state of mythologic thought.

"Ladybird! ladybird! pretty one, stay!

Come, sit on my finger, so happy and gay.

Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home, Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam.

Then ladybird! ladybird! fly away home.

Hark! hark! to thy children bewailing."

Yearly, as these harvest bugs, with their crimson or golden-coloured shields, appear in our country lanes, the village youngsters delight in capturing them, and play a game similar to the German child's. They sing--

"Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home, Your house is on fire, your children will roam, Excepting the youngest, and her name is Ann, And she has crept under the dripping-pan."

FOOTNOTES:

[H] "e?? ? pat??, pa?de? d? d??de?a t?? d? ?' ???st?

pa?de? ?as? t??????t' ??d??a e?d?? ????sa?

?? ?? ?e??a? ?as?? ?de?? ? d' a?te ??a??a?

????at?? d? t' ???sa? ap?f?????s?? ?pasa?."

CHAPTER IX.

NURSERY CHARMS.

To charm away the hiccup one must repeat these four lines thrice in one breath, and a cure will be certain--

"When a twister twisting twists him a twist, For twisting a twist three twists he must twist; But if one of the twists untwists from the twist, The twist untwisting untwists all the twist."

AN ESs.e.x CHARM FOR A CHURN, 1650 A.D.

"Come, b.u.t.ter, come; come, b.u.t.ter, come, Peter stands at the gate Waiting for his b.u.t.tered cake; Come, b.u.t.ter, come."

The late Sir Humphry Davy is said to have learnt this cure for cramp when a boy--

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, ease us, I beg!

The devil has tied a knot in my leg; Crosses three we make to ease us, Two for the robbers and one for Jesus."

A CHARM AGAINST GHOSTS.

"There are four corners at my bed, There are four angels there.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, G.o.d bless the bed that I lay on."

The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John rhymes were well known in Ess.e.x in Elizabeth's time. Ady, in his "Candle after dark," 1655, mentions an old woman he knew, who had lived from Queen Mary's time, and who had been taught by the priests in those days many Popish charms. The old woman, amongst other rhymes, repeated--

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, The bed be blest that I lay on."

This was to be repeated yearly, thrice on Twelfth Night, and it would act as a charm until the following year against evil spirits.

In 1601 a charm in general esteem against lightning was a laurel leaf.

"Reach the bays" (or laurel leaves), "and wear one."

"I'll tie a garland here about his head, 'Twill keep my boy from lightning."

Even Tiberius Caesar wore a chaplet of laurel leaves about his neck.

Pliny reported that "laurel leaves were never blasted by lightning."

MONEY RHYMES.

"How a la.s.s gave her lover three slips for a tester, And married another a week before Easter."

"Little Mary Esther sat upon a tester, Eating curds and whey; There came a big spider, and sat down beside her, And frightened little Mary Esther away!"

"Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four-and-twenty blackbirds, Baked in a pie.

"When the pie was opened The birds began to sing, Was not that a dainty dish To set before the king?