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Preface
In offering to the public this
collection of Children's Rhymes, Children's Gaines, Children's
Songs, and Children's stories ---the multitudinous items of which,
or such, at least, as were not living in my own memory, have been
gathered with patient industry, albeit with much genuine delight,
from wide and varied sources—I anticipate for the work a hearty and
general welcome, alike from old and young. It is the first really
sincere effort to collect in anything like ample and exclusive
fashion the natural literature of the children of Scotland, and
meets what has long appealed to me as decidedly a felt want. The
earlier pages are occupied with a commentary, textually illustrated,
on the generally puerile, but regularly fascinating Rhymes of the
Nursery, the vitality and universal use of which have been at once
the wonder and the Muzzle of the ages. This is followed in turn by a
chapter on Counting-out Rhymes, with numerous examples, home and
foreign, which is succeeded, appropriately, by a section of the work
embracing description of all the well-known out-door and in-door
Rhyme-Games—in each case the Rhyme being given, the action being
portrayed. The remaining contents the title may be left to suggest.
I may only add that the stories--including ''Blue Beard," and "Jack
the Giant Killer," and their fellow-narratives —ten in all—are
printed verbatim from the old chapbooks once so common in the
country, but now so rare as to be almost unobtainable.
Essentially a book
about children and their picturesque and innocent, though often
apparently meaningless, frolics, by the young in the land, I am
assured, it will be received with open arms. From the "children, of
larger growth" those who were once young and have delight in
remembering the fact.- the welcome, if less boisterous, should be
not less sincere. Commend to me on all occasions the man or woman
who, `1 with lyart haffets thin and bare," can sing with the poet-
''Och hey! gin I were young again,
Ochoue! gin I were young again
For chasin' bumbees owre the plain
Is just an auld sang sung again."
ROBERT FORD
287 Onslow Drive,
Dennistoun,
Glasgow.
Contents
Rhymes of the
Nursery
Counting-Out
Rhymes
Children's
Rhyme-Games
Merry-ma-Tanzie
The Mulberry
Bush
A Dis, a Dis,
a Green Grass
Looby Looby
I Dree I
Droppit it
Bab at the
Bowster
The Wadds
The Wadds and
the Wears
The Widow of
Babylon
London Bridge
The Jolly
Miller
Willie Wastle
Oats and
Beans and Barley
Hornie Holes
The Craw
Neevie-neevie-nick-nack
Blind Man's
Buff
Water
Wallflower
The Emperor
Napoleon
A' the
Birdies i the Air
Through the
Needle-e'e, Boys
King Henry
The Blue Bird
When I was a
Young Thing
Carry my Lady
to London
A, B, C.
My Theerie
and my Thorie
Glasgow Ships
Airlie's
Green
Het Rowes and
Butter Cakes
Queen Mary
Whuppity
Scoorie
Hinkumbooby
Three
Brethren come from Spain
Here Comes a
Poor Sailor from Botany Bay
Janet Jo
The Goloshans
Children's Songs
and Ballads
Cock Robin
The Marriage
of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren
The North Wind
Little
Bo-Peep
The House
that Jack Built
Simple Simon
Old Mother
Hubbard
Old Mother
Goose
The Old Woman
and her Pig
A Frog be
would a-wooing go
The Carrion
Crow
My Pretty Maid
Can ye Sew
Cushions?
Hush-a-ba
Birdie, Croon
Dance to your
Daddie
Katie Beardie
The MiIler's
Dochter
Hap and Row
How Dan,
Dilly Dow
Crowdie
Whistle,
whistle, Auld Wife
The Three
Little Pigs
Cowe the
Nettle early
The Wren's
Nest
Robin
Redbreast's Testament
Children's Humour
and Quaint Sayings
Schoolroom Facts
and Fancies
Children's
Stories
Blue Beard
Jack and the
Bean-Stalk
The Babes in
the Wood
Jack the
Giant Killer
Little Red
Riding Hood
Cinderella;
or, the Little Glass Slipper
Puss in Boots
Whittington
and his Cat
Beauty and
the Beast
The Sleeping
Beauty
Tales from Scottish
Ballads (text file) |
