David, I think it originally was a "juice-harp" (for the saliva) but mutated into "jew's-harp" (because of the similarity of the sounds of the names).

Robert Meyer

That sounds likely, Robert.

Ours (first grade) was:

Ring around the roses,
Pocket full of poseys,
Upstairs, downstairs,
STOOP!
.
and another:
.
Here we go loopity loop
(close ring up tight))
Here we go loopity lite,
(back up, opening ring)
Here we go loopity loop
(open again)
All on a Saturday night.
.

And of course, The farmer in the dell, but I just can't remember how that one goes beyond The wife takes a child.

G/W

A popular south Louisiana children's chant:

She rocks in the treetop all day long
Rockin' and a robin gonna sing that song
All the little girls on Happy Days
Like to hear the Fonz go "hey hey hey" (thumbs up)
Rockin' Robin rock rock tonight
Rockin' Robin rock rock tonight
Momma in the kitchen cookin' rice
Daddy round the corner shootin' dice
Brother in jail raisin' hell
Sister round the corner selling fruit cocktail

(verses are added freely)


And another:

Let's go zoodio zoodio zoodio
Let's go zoodio all night long
Well, it's step back Sally Sally Sally
A-walkin' through the alley, alley, alley
I peeped through my window and what did I see?
I saw a big fat lady from Tennessee
She raised her dress above her knee
And she shimmy shimmy shimmy all over me
Oh, let's go zoodio zoodio zoodio all night long...

Here's one by which I was ridden on the knees of adults in almost babyhood. Certainly this was not originated by a white person, but it was adopted by them for the universal pleasure of bouncing tots on the knee. My daughter loved it when she was a wee-wee tot; and so did my grandson.:

(slowly)Here come Massa, trot, trot, trot, trot...
(faster)Here come Missy, pace-a-pace-a-pace-a-pace...
(very fast)Here come Jack, gallop a-gallop a-gallop a-gallop...

.

Comments here concerning race-ism and the day's news about im-migration remind me of a sublime work by our late American master of light verse, Bret Harte. Viz.::

Plain Language from Truthful James

WHICH I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye’s sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,—
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, “Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,”—
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game “he did not understand.”

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,—
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers,—that’s wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—
Which the same I am free to maintain.
.

Pace tua

G.


[This message has been edited by Golias (edited May 01, 2006).]

Bret Harte's poem is pretty appalling. Actually there seems to be a disturbingly large "legacy" of verse out there that is rooted in racism and jingoistic attitudes-- mostly out of the late 19th/early 20th century (clearly a very different time from ours, sociologically speaking-- and infused with very different sensibilities). I think, though, that this may not be the place to post bunches of them, for pretty obvious reasons.

Incidentally, I want to apologize to one and all for my being so scarce lately; I've been up in the north woods at a place called Bjorklunden (Lawrence University's Seminar Center) teaching METER to a great group of people who actually wanted to learn it!

But it's good to be back, to read all your interesting posts--

Marilyn

LITTLE Indian, Sioux or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
O! don’t you wish that you were me?

It is the sanctimonious, self-congratulatory attitude of those who imagine they are somehow wiser or better than their forebears which is perhaps saddening though hardly appalling nor even surprising. Those who consciously or unconsciously adopt the fallacy of Hegel regarding history rather than the existentialist view of Kierkegaard are living out the truth of the latter while disproving the former, though they may believe they are doing just the opposite.

G.



[This message has been edited by Golias (edited May 02, 2006).]

About the knee-riding songs, I think there were many.
One of the older ones from England goes:

This is the way the ladies ride,
trot, trot, trot, trot,
This is the way the ladies ride,
trot, trot, trot.

This is the way the gentlemen ride,
gallop-a-trot, gallop-a-trot,
This is the way the gentlemen ride,
gallop-a-gallop-a-trot.

This is the way the farmers ride,
hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy,
This is the way the farmers ride,
hobblede-hobbledehoy!
(Of course on this verse the baby is tossed
up in the air.)
the air on this verse.)

Some of these rhymes were an important outlet for anger among children. Spankings, beatings, and the incredible monotony of sitting at a desk most of the schoolday made for an awful lot of repressed childhood anger. Singing these songs was exhilarating, and they were conceived before television, before the concept that it should be unnecessary to physically defend yourself against attacks by other children your own age. If you never learned how fight (girl or boy), you were at a terrible disadvantage and certainly likely to become someone's victim on the way home from school one day.

"Pick on someone your own size!" was a common retort. Confronted with physical intimidation on a regular basis, children were hardly expected to keep their taunts to themselves!

The most common taunt of all was this, and it was always in self-defense:

Sticks and stones will break my bones,
but names will never hurt me!

This was sung to the old tune:

Cheer, cheer, cheer, the school is burning down!
Cheer, cheer, cheer, it's burning to the ground!
Cheer, cheer, cheer, Miss Brice is turning brown!
There'll be a hot time in the old school tonight.

This was chanted rather than sung:

Lizzie Borden took an axe,
gave her mother forty wacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one!

Terese

PS. How about the old retort, "It's a free country!" whenever anyone suggested or demanded you adhere to their personal rules.



[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited May 10, 2006).]

Pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbtttt.

Acknowledging that some things have changed for the better is not the same as pretending we're inherently wiser or better than our forebears. It may be that for each thing that's changed for the better, some other thing has changed for the worse. But that doesn't change the fact that some things are better.

Or perhaps you think nothing's changed for the better since the good old days, when it was okay to say "nigger" - back when white people's superiority was treated as a given; when unwed pregnant girls were disowned and shunned while the boys who'd gotten them that way were winked at and slapped on the back; when gays and their spouses suffered quietly all their lives in sham marriages; when nobody reported child abuse; when everybody drove around drunk and worked in asbestos-lined buildings with peeling lead paint and locked fire exits.

Rose, I think pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbtttt is spelled pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbttt (just three t's, not four), but apart from that, right on!

"I know that "old bald-headed chinese" song. Here's how it went---
My mother, she told me to open the door for the old bald-headed chinese. So I opened the door and he fell through the floor, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give me to give him a drink, the old bald-headed chinese. So I gave him a drink and he swallowed the sink, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give him some cake, the old bald-headed chinese. So I gave him some cake and he ate up the plate, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give him a bath, the old bald-headed chinese. ?So I gave him a bath and let out some gas, the old bald-headed chinese?.
My mother, she told me to put him to bed, the old bald-headed chinese. So I put him to bed and he chopped off his head, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to bury him deep, the old bald-headed chinese. So I buried him deep and he stuck up his feet, the old bald-headed chinese.

I never met anyone who knew that song.
Megan

Thanks for that, Megan.
It's good to have a record of these obscure and almost-forgotten things.

By the way,
I plan to publish a collection of these, sooner or later.
So if anyone has any more I'd be grateful to hear them, either here or by PM.

What a fun subject, and what a great idea, David. Megan, having missed this thread the first time I’m glad you resurrected it. I have a fascinating book called Folklore on the American Land, by Duncan Emrich, that includes some jump-rope rhymes in the section on children’s folklore. They were collected at an elementary school in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. Here’s a sweet example. It reminds me of "Sumer is icumen in":

Blackbird whistle, woodpecker drum,
"Spring has come, Spring has come."
Cardinal sing in the maple tree,
"Spring is here for you and me."
Longer day and shorter night,
Little boy, bring out your kite.

Emrich includes others I remember from my childhood in Buffalo in the 1970s, like "Ladybug, ladybug, turn around" and a version of the one Alicia quoted way upstream, about Miss Suzie, Tiny Tim, and the lady with the alligator purse. Miss Suzie has longevity! My seven-year-old daughter, who has just gotten into jump-rope games, knows another variant of it in which Tiny Tim floats up in a soap bubble that pops at the end.

How about dumb bathroom humor? I haven't seen any of that on this thread (skimming through), but Jeez, didn't we all like it?

There's that golden oldie:

Beans beans are good for your heart,
Beans beans will make you fart.
The more you eat
The more you fart
The more you fart
The better you feel
So let's eat beans for every meal!


And a playground favorite I remember:

In days of old
When knights were bold
And there were no toilets,
You used to lay a load
Upon the road
And walk away contented.


Anybody else remember some?

Andrew, are you sure the "toilet" one didn't go like so:

In days of old when knights were bold
and toilets were not yet invented,
they'd lay their load upon the road
and walk away contented

That's the way I learned it. Rhyming and metrical!

Paddy Crotty owned the local bakery here and us kids were fond of chanting;

Don't ever eat Crotty's old bread,
it will lie in your belly like lead-
your father will thunder,
your mother will wonder-
was he eating Crotty's old bread?

Obviously we were a little more precocious than some here;

In days of old a knight was bold
though frenchies weren't invented,
he wrapped his tool in cotton wool
and went to bed contented.

Bob and Jim,
Your versions of the knight-toilet poem are much better than the one from my playground.
I know I'm recalling how it actually went--clearly we were a bunch of free verse bumpkins.
It's interesting how your versions are funnier and wittier too. Rhyme and meter can do that, can't they?
Andrew

It goes:

The child takes the nurse
The nurse takes the dog
The dog takes the cat
The cat takes the rat
The rat takes the cheese
The cheese stands alone

It must have taken quite a few children to play this, as it involves adding new people to the dancing line until all the chosen ones are circling around the solitary cheese (who then, I presume, becomes the next farmer).

Sorry if this has been mentioned already. No poet should go without the work of Iona and Peter Opie: in nursery rhyme, fairy story and the habits of children. The great New York Review Books has reprinted their Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. One of the most fun aspects of this book are the scholarly maps of England with titles like "Districts where children customarily roll eggs at Easter," "Truce terms in Great Britain" and "Mardy area." (Mardy=spoiled child or cry-baby, hence "Mardy area" is the great central band of England where children taunt (or once taunted) others with "Mardy, mardy mustard, can't eat custard!")

There is, needless to say, a whole chapter on counting rhymes.

Thanks, Mike, for making me aware of the Opies. What a treasure-trove!

Cally

Holding baby by the arms on lap facing you, jiggling knees up and down:

Trot trot to Boston,
Trot trot to Lynn,
Look out, little [baby's name],
Don't fall IN!

(On "In," spread knees slightly and lean forward so baby dips between knees.)

Jump rope rhymes:

Down in the valley where the green grass grows,
There sat [Sally] as sweet as a rose [girl who is jumping]
Along came [Peter] and kissed her on the nose,
How many kisses did she get?

--

Parkinson, Parkinson sat on a pin.
How many inches did it go in?

--

Mabel, Mabel, set the table,
Don't forget the red - hot -
Pepper! (twirling fast)

--

And then these old nonsense favorites:

Ladies and gentlemen, horses and mules,
Four-legged baby piano stools,
I come before you to stand behind you
To tell you something I know nothing about.
This Thursday, being Good Friday,
There will be a ladies' meeting for men only.
Admission free, pay at the door,
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.

--
'Twas midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight.
I stopped into a cigar store To ask them for a light.
The man behind the counter was a woman old and gray,
who used to peddle donuts on the road to Mandalay.
She said, "Good morning, stranger," and her eye was dry with tears.
She stuck her head beneath her foot and stayed that way for years.
Her children were all orphans, except one tiny tot
who had a house across the street upon a vacant lot.
"Women and children first," he said, as he passed his plate for more.
He took his hat from off the hook and hung it on the floor.

Esther

What brought this suddenly back from the year 2006??

Whatever.

Anyone who has ever seen "The Gondoliers" knows this one:

My papa he keeps three horses,
Black and white and dapple gray, sir.
Turn three times then take your courses,
Catch whichever girl you may, sir!

Apropos of this, here is a classic music hall song. We were once thrown out of a pub in Dersingham for singing it. ("We ain't got no bloody singing license, mate.")

You have to picture the Cockney accent:

A mother was washing her baby one night,
The youngest of 10 and a delicate mite,
The mother was poor and the baby was thin,
'Twas naught but a skellington covered with skin.
The mother turned round for the soap off the rack --
Only a moment -- but when she looked back
Her baby was gone! And in anguish she cried,
"Ow where has my baby gone?" The angels repli-ied:

"Your baby has gone down the plug hole,
Your baby has gone down the plug.
The poor little thing was so skinny and thin
It ought to be washed in a jug.
Your baby is perfectly happy.
He won't need a bath any more.
He's a-mucking about with the angels above--
Not lost, but gone before!"

Nonsense & children's rhymes
 

This was a favourite of my Dad (ex UK)
Mother, may I go down to bathe?
Yes, my darling daughter,
Hang your clothes on a gooseberry bush
But don't go near the water!
also:
Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear
One step; two steps
Tickley under there

My Mother (Ex Scotland) taught us:
Roond aboot, roond aboot
Ran a wee mouse (moose)
Up a bit, up a bit
In a wee house (hoos).

I wish I could track down this poem of my Dad:
Out among the mountain bracken
Where the little foxgloves grow
Lived a lonely goblin
Thinking of what he could do.
I can gather mountain berries
I can make them into jam
??????
Gordon
I'm beginning to get the hang of Eratosphere, with the emphasis on beginning.

This is an interesting thread from years ago.
Alex contacted me once to say a woman wanted to use it as the basis for a book. She said she'd amend the racist and obscene verses. I said, fine by me, on condition she bowdlerized nothing. I never heard back, so presume she didn't go ahead.