Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes

Many of our ladybird rhymes refer to the danger that is threatening, probably from sunset or the direction of the West, but one person is safe. It is little Nan, who sits weaving gold laces. Spinning gold or silk was a prerogative of the mother divinities who sat in heaven (Gr., 223, M., 705). Another rhyme calls her Ann. Nan or Ann reappears in the corresponding ladybird rhymes of Switzerland and Swabia. In Aargau they sing: —

Goldchäber, flüg uf, uf dine hoche Tanne,
Zue diner Muetter Anne.
Si git dir Chäs und Brod,
's isch besser as der bitter Tod.

    (R., p. 464.)

"Gold-chafer, up and away, up to thy high story, to thy Mother Anne, who gives thee bread and cheese. 'Tis better than bitter death."

In Swabia they sing: —

Sonnevögele flieg aus,
Flieg in meiner Ahne Haus,
Bring mir Aepfel und Bire;
Komm bald wieder.

    (Me., p. 24.)

"Sunbird, fly away, fly to my ancestress' house; bring me apples and pears; come back soon."

This request to the ladybird to bring down gifts from heaven has a parallel in our rhyme which entreats it to "carry up ten pounds, and bring down eleven."

According to another of our rhymes the one who is safe at home is Tom, who lies under the grindelstone, that is the grindstone. The analysis of the stories that are told of Tom shows that he is related to the northern god Thor, and that the grindstone corresponds to Thor's hammer. Moreover, in Scandinavian folk-lore there is a house-sprite called Tommelgubbe, literally Tom-boy, who took offence if work was done on a Thursday, the day sanctified to the god Thor. The hammer of Thor was called Mjölnir, that is pounder, and with it the god was busy in summertime in heaven, pounding ice into snow.

In an old story-book called Tom Hickathrift, otherwise Hickifric,[44 - Reprinted Halliwell, 1849, p. 81 ff.] traits are preserved in connection with Tom, which recall the peculiarities of the god Thor. Tom dwelt with his mother, who slept on straw; there was no father. Thor had no father; his mother was designated as Godmor. Tom ate hugely, Thor did the same. Tom flung his hammer into the river, Thor measured distance by throwing his hammer. Tom carted beer – a trait that recalls Thor's fits of drunkenness. On one occasion Tom made himself a weapon by sticking an axle-tree into a waggon-wheel, which suggests that Thor's hammer was a flat stone mace. Likewise Tom, having broken his club, "seized upon a lusty raw-boned miller," and used him as a weapon. Can we hesitate from accepting that this "miller" in a confused manner recalls the Mjölnir– that is the hammer – of the northern god Thor?

The analysis of the ladybird rhymes takes us even farther afield. In Saxony they sing: —

Flieg, Käfer, flieg, dein Vater ist im Krieg,
Deine Mutter ist in den Stiefel gekroche,
Hat das linke Bein gebroche.

    (M., p. 347.)

"Fly, chafer, fly, father has gone to war, mother has crept into the shoe, she has broken her left leg."

The mother with the broken leg of this rhyme recalls the limping mother of the Babyland game, and the person in Drop Handkerchief, who was bitten. The expression of "creeping into a shoe" yields a clue to the nature of the woman of one of our rhymes who lived in a shoe, and was oppressed by the number of her children. In one form this rhyme, cited above in connection with the tale of Mother Hubbard, describes how the children were to all appearance dead, but were quickened into life. This conception is allied to the quickening into life of the babes in the Babyland game. In its earliest printed form the rhyme stands as follows: —

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread,
She whipped all their bums and sent them to bed.

    (c. 1783, p. 52.)
Those of our ladybird rhymes which call on the insect in matters of love divination have their closest parallels in Scandinavia. In Sweden they sing: —

Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga,
Flyg öster, flyg vester,
Flyg dit der bor din älskede.

    (1849, p. 5.)

"Fly, Our Lady's keybearer! fly east, fly west, fly where thy lover dwells."

Of the rhymes of this class, one introduces the term Golloway. This may be intended for Yellow Way, the course of the sun in daytime, as distinct from the Milky Way, the course of the stars at night.

Another rhyme begins with the call Bishop, bishop, which has puzzled various commentators. I venture to suggest that the word be read Beeship, and that it indicates the boat that sailed across heaven bearing the souls of the dead, who were figured as bees. For the spirits of those who passed away, viewed under one aspect, were bees, and the ship that conveyed the dead in Norsk saga was actually designated as the Býskip. Mannhardt, in illustration, cites a line which the skald Egil Skallagrimssonr, whose date is between 902 and 980, sang on his son that had been drowned: —

Byrr es býskips i boe kominn kvanar son.

"In the beeship there has gone the son of my wife."

Our commentators inaccurately translate the expression as "City of the Hive" (C. P., I, 546).

According to a fancy of the Welsh bards, Britain was peopled with bees before the arrival of man, and this was held to account for its name, the "Isle of Honey."

A Prussian ladybird rhyme also mentions the boat that sailed across heaven. In Dantzig they sing: —

Herrgotspferdchen, fliege weg,
Dein Häuschen brennt, dein Kähnchen schwimmt,
Deine Kinder schreien nach Butterbrod;
Herrgotspferdchen, fliege weg.

    (M., 349.)
"God Almighty's little horse, fly away, thy house is on fire, thy boat is afloat, thy children cry for bread and butter."

From an early period the sun was supposed to be conveyed in a boat, and boats were associated with divinities half the world over. Tacitus was acquainted with the boat of the goddess Isis that was conveyed about in Alexandria, and he described the boat that was taken about in procession by the heathen Germans in their cult of Hertha, as the boat of Isis (Gr., p. 214). The sun-boat of Ra in Egypt conveyed the dead to heaven. So did the golden ship of Odin in Scandinavia, which conveyed the bodies of the fallen warriors to Valhalla. The remembrance of this sun-boat probably gave rise to the story how Ikaros invented sails. It may linger still in the "beeship" of our rhymes, and in the "Kähnchen" of the corresponding German ladybird rhyme.

CHAPTER X

RIDDLE-RHYMES

AMONG other rhymes which date some way back in history are those which may fitly be called riddle-rhymes. Some of these have close parallels in the nursery lore of other countries. The most interesting example of this class is the rhyme on Humpty-Dumpty which deals with the egg. The egg from the earliest times formed an enigma in itself, and was looked upon as representing the origin of life. Aristophanes knew of the great bird that laid the world-egg. According to Kalevala, the Finnish epic, the world-egg fell and broke. Its upper part became the vault of heaven, its lower part the earth. The yolk formed the sun, the white the moon, and the fragments of the shell became the stars in heaven. Reminiscences of this idea of a world-egg linger in the Senchus Mor of Ireland and in the Volospa of Norse saga. In Tibet the holy Budh is represented holding in his hand a broken egg-shell, on the edge of which a diminutive human being is sometimes represented sitting. These world-wide conceptions account for the existence of numerous riddles that are current about the egg.

The rhyme on Humpty-Dumpty among us is current in three variations: —

Humpty-Dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more
Cannot place Humpty-Dumpty as he was before.

    (1810, p. 36.)
Humpty-Dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's soldiers and all the king's men
Cannot set Humpty-Dumpty up again.

    (1842, p. 113.)