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"When I was a young thing,"
of simple though pretty action, has had a wide vogue. Its rhyme goes:—
When I was a young thing,
A young thing, a young thing;
When I was a young thing,
How happy was I.
'Twas this way. and that way,
And this way, and that way
When I was a young thing.
Oh, this way went I.
When I was a school-girl,
etc.
When I was a teacher, etc.
When I had a sweetheart, etc.
When I had a husband, etc.
When I had a baby, etc.
When I had a donkey, etc.
When I took in washing, etc.
When my baby died, oh died. etc.
When my husband died, etc.
The players, joining
hands, form a ring, and dance or walk round singing the words, and
keeping the ring form until the end of the fourth line in each
successive verse, when they unclasp, and stand still. Each child then
takes hold of her skirt and dances individually to the right and left,
making two or three steps. Then all walk round singly, singing the
second four lines, and masking suitable action to the words as they sing
and go: the same form being continued throughout. |
