The view that Jack and Jill are mythological or heroic beings finds corroboration in the expression "for Jak nor for Gille," which occurs in the Townley Mysteries of about the year 1460.12 By this declaration a superhuman power is called in as witness. The same names are coupled together also in an ancient divination rhyme used to decide in favour of one of two courses of action. Two scraps of paper slightly moistened were placed on the back of the hand, and the following invocation was pronounced before and after breathing upon them to see which would fly first. The sport was taught by Goldsmith to Miss Hawkins when a child, as she related to Forster.13
There were two blackbirds sat upon a hill
The one was named Jack, the other named Jill.
Fly away Jack! Fly away Jill!
Come again Jack! Come again Jill!
The lines suggest the augur's action with regard to the flight of birds. The same verse has been recited to me in the following variation: —
Peter and Paul sat on the wall,
Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul!
Come again Peter! Come again Paul!
In this case the names of Christian apostles have been substituted for heathen names which, at the time when the names were changed, may still have carried a suggestion of profanity. The following rhyme on Jack and Gill occurs in an early nursery collection: —
I won't be my father's Jack,
I won't be my mother's Gill,
I will be the fiddler's wife
And have music when I will.
T'other little tune, t'other little tune,
Pr'ythee, love, play me, t'other little tune.
CHAPTER III
RHYMES AND POPULAR SONGS
ON looking more closely at the contents of our nursery collections, we find that a large proportion of so-called nursery rhymes are songs or snatches of songs, which are preserved also as broadsides, or appeared in printed form in early song-books. These songs or parts of songs were included in nursery collections because they happened to be current at the time when these collections were made, and later compilers transferred into their own collections what they found in earlier ones. Many songs are preserved in a number of variations, for popular songs are in a continual state of transformation. Sometimes new words are written to the old tune, and differ from those that have gone before in all but the rhyming words at the end of the lines; sometimes new words are introduced which entirely change the old meaning. Many variations of songs are born of the moment, and would pass away with it, were it not that they happen to be put into writing and thereby escape falling into oblivion.
In Mother Goose's Melody stands a song in six verses which begins: —
There was a little man who woo'd a little maid,
And he said: "Little maid, will you wed, wed, wed?
I have little more to say, will you? Aye or nay?
For little said is soonest mended, ded, ded."
Halliwell's collection includes only the first and the fourth verse of this piece. (1842, p. 24.)
In the estimation of Chappell this song was a very popular ballad, which was sung to the tune of I am the Duke of Norfolk, or Paul's Steeple.14 It appears also in the Fairing or Golden Toy for Children of all Sizes and Denominations of 1781, where it is designated as "a new love song by the poets of Great Britain." Its words form a variation of the song called The Dumb Maid, which is extant in a broadside of about 1678,15 and which is also included in the early collection of Pills to Purge Melancholy of 1698-1719. The likeness between the pieces depends on their peculiar repeat: —
There was a bonny blade had married a country maid,
And safely conducted her home, home, home;
She was neat in every part, and she pleased him to the heart,
But alas, and alas, she was dumb, dumb, dumb.
The same form of verse was used in another nursery song which stands as follows: —
There was a little man, and he had a little gun,
And the ball was made of lead, lead, lead.
And he went to a brook to shoot at a duck,
And he hit her upon the head, head, head.
Then he went home unto his wife Joan,
To bid her a good fire to make, make, make,
To roast the duck that swam in the brook,
And he would go fetch her the drake, drake, drake.
Again, a song which appears in several early nursery collections is as follows: —
There was an old woman toss'd in a blanket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon;
But where she was going no mortal could tell,
For under her arm she carried a broom.
"Old woman, old woman, old woman," said I,
"Whither, ah whither, ah whither, so high?"
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky,
And I'll be with you by and by.
This song was a favourite with Goldsmith, who sang it to his friends at dinner on the day when his play The Good-natured Man was produced.16 It was one of the numerous songs that were sung to the tune of Lilliburlero, which goes back at least to the time of Purcell.17 A Scottish version of this piece was printed by Chambers, which presents some interesting variations: —
There was a wee wifie row't up in a blanket,
Nineteen times as hie as the moon;
And what did she there I canna declare,
For in her oxter she bure the sun.
"Wee wifie, wee wifie, wee wifie," quo' I,
"O what are ye doin' up there sae hie?"
"I'm blowin' the cauld cluds out o' the sky."
"Weel dune, weel dune, wee wifie!" quo' I.
I have come across a verse sung on Earl Grey and Lord Brougham, written in 1835, which may have been in imitation of this song: —
Mother Bunch shall we visit the moon?
Come, mount on your broom, I'll stick on a spoon,
Then hey to go, we shall be there soon … etc.
Mother Bunch is a familiar character of British folk-lore, who figures in old chapbooks as a keeper of old-world saws, and gives advice in matters matrimonial. One of the earliest accounts of her is Pasquill's Jests with the Merriments of Mother Bunch, extant in several editions, which was reprinted by Hazlitt in Old English Jestbooks, 1864, Vol. III. There are also Mother Bunch's Closet newly broke open, Mother Bunch's Golden Fortune Teller, and Mother Bunch's Fairy Tales,