A History of Nursery Rhymes Part 4

In the northern counties of England the children use the words, "Hushu!

Hushu!" in the third line.

The Spirit of the Cornfield is dreaded by children of all European countries. In Saxon Transylvania the children gather maize leaves and completely cover one of their playmates with them. This game is intended to prefigure death.

"CUCKOOS!"

"Cuckoo cherrytree, catch a bird And give it to me."[G]

The people of the Oral and Tula Governments, especially the maidens, christen the cuckoo "gossip darlings!"

In one of the Lithuanian districts the girls sing--

"Sister, dear, Mottled cuckoo!

Thou who feedest The horses of thy brother, Thou who spinnest silken threads, Sing, O cuckoo, Shall I soon be married?"

In _Love's Labour's Lost_ a pa.s.sage occurs where the two seasons, Spring and Winter, vie with each other in extolling the cuckoo and the owl.

_Spring._

"When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he-- Cuckoo!

Cuckoo! cuckoo!

O word of fear, Unpleasing to the married ear!"

Thus is cuckoo gossip perpetuated in rhyme and song; but an old belief in the mysteriously disappearing bird gave an opportunity to children to await its return in the early summer, and then address to it all kinds of ridiculous questions.

"How many years have I to live?" is a favourite query. The other like that of the Lithuanian maid, "Shall I soon be married?" meets with favour amongst single girls.

A German song, ent.i.tled "The Shepherd Maiden," indicates this custom.

The words being--

"A shepherd maiden, one fine day, Two lambs to pasture led, To verdant fields where daisies grew, And bloomed the clover red; There spied she in a hedge close by A cuckoo, call with merry cry, Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!"

After chasing the immortal bird from tree to tree to have her question, "Shall I soon be married?" answered, the song concludes with this taunting refrain--

"Two hundred then she counted o'er, The cuckoo still cried as before, Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!"

In our earliest published song, words and music composed by John of Forsete, monk of Reading Abbey, date 1225, and ent.i.tled "Sumer is ic.u.men in," the cuckoo is also extolled--

"Summer is a-coming in, loudly sing, cuckoo; Groweth the seed, bloweth the mead, and springeth wood anew.

Sing, cuckoo! Merry sing, cuckoo, Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!"

The peasantry of Russia, India, and Germany contribute to the collection of cuckoo-lore. Grimm mentions a Cuckoo Hill in Gauchsberg. The cuckoo and not the hill may have had the mystic sense.

Identical with this Cuckoo Hill, in its solemn significance, there occurs a pa.s.sage in the game of Hot c.o.c.kles, played formerly at Yorkshire funerals.

"Where is the poor man to go?"

the friends whine, and the mutes who are in readiness to follow the coffin beat their knees with open hands and reply--

"Over the Cuckoo Hill, I oh!"

The a.s.sociation of ideas about the prophetic notes of the cuckoo's mocking voice--in matters of marriage and death--are pretty general, and there are still further many points of ident.i.ty in the tales told by the children of India and Southern Russia. Like the Phnix idea amongst the people of Egypt, Persia, and India, these traditions allegorise the soul's immortality.

A WORD ON INDIAN LORE.

The old prose editions of the sacred books of India--the law codes of the Aryans--were suitably arranged in verse to enable the contents to be committed to memory by the students. In these rules the ritual of the simplest rites is set forth. New and full moon offerings are given, and regulations minutely describing as to the way salutation shall be made.

Much after the fashion of the grandees or the Red Indian moon worshipper of North America, it is told how a Brahmana must salute stretching forth his right hand level with his ear, a Kshalriza holding it level with the breast, a Sudra holding it low--all caste observances and relics of a sign-language.

"A householder shall worship G.o.ds, manes, men, goblins, and rishis,"

remains of ancestral worship. "Adoration must be given to him who wears the moon on his forehead," the oldest known form of worship, possibly, of the Drift-man's period, "and he shall offer libations of water, oblations of clarified b.u.t.ter, and worship the moon." The b.u.t.ter oblation was practised by the Celts! They have a lunar penance, "he shall fast on the day of the new moon."

These observances belonged to a people who, without doubt, migrated from the West to the East. The manes and goblins are pre-Celtic, and have likewise been preserved by those who travelled, as the journey became possible, towards Asia. Some of our nursery tales, children's games, are likewise known to them. The same legends are extant in the East and West, all of which have a common origin, and that a religious one.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] An old English child rhyme mentioned in BARNES' _Shropshire Folk-lore_.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

"Oh, Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeemed Life's years of ill!"

GAMES.

The annual calendar of dates when certain of the pastimes and songs of our street children become fashionable is an uncertain one, yet games have their seasons most wonderfully and faithfully marked. Yearly all boys seem to know the actual time for the revivification of a custom, whether it be of whipping tops, flirting marbles, spinning peg-tops, or playing tip-cat or piggy. This survival of custom speaks eloquently of the child influence on civilisation, for the conservation of the human family may be found literally portrayed in the pastimes, games, and songs of the children of our streets.

Curious relics of past cruelties are shadowed forth in many of the present games--some of which are not uninteresting. The barbarous custom of whipping martyrs at the stake is perpetuated by the game of whip-top.

In a black-letter book in the British Museum, date 15--(?) occurs this pa.s.sage--

"I am good at scourging of my toppe, You would laugh to see me morsel the pegge, Upon one foot I can hoppe, And dance trimly round an egge."

The apprentices of the London craftsmen followed the popular diversion of c.o.c.k-throwing on Shrove Tuesday and tossing pancakes in the frying-pan--the latter custom is still kept up at Westminster School.

Both bear allusion to the sufferings and torments of men who died for conscience sake.

Dice and pitch-and-toss, also modern games of the present gutter children, in primitive times were the ways and means adopted by the learned to consult the oracles. Much in the same way the Scotch laddie and wee la.s.sie play--

"Dab a prin in my lottery-book; Dab ane, dab two, dab a' your prins awa',"

by sticking at random pins in their school-books, between the leaves of which little pictures are placed. This is the lottery-box, the pictures the prizes, and the pins the forfeits.