A DRINKING CUSTOM. A pie sat on a pear tree, Heigh ho! heigh ho! heigh ho! These lines are sung by a person at the table after dinner. His next neighbour then sings "Once so merrily hopped she," during which the first singer is obliged to drink a bumper; and should he be unable to empty his glass before the last line is sung, he must begin again till he succeeds. The next line is "Twice so merrily hopped she," sung by the next person under a similar arrangement, and so on; beginning again after "Thrice so merrily hopped she, heigh ho! heigh ho! heigh ho!" till the ceremony has been repeated around the table. It is to be hoped so absurd a practice is not now in fashion. When a boy finds anything, and another sees him stoop for it, if the latter cries halves before he has picked it up, he is, by schoolboy law, entitled to half of it. This right may, however, be negatived, if the finder cries out first Ricket, racket, find it, tack it, And niver give it to the aunder. Or, sometimes the following: No halfers, Boys leaving the schoolroom are accustomed to shout Those that go my way, butter and eggs, Those that go your way chop off their legs. A sort of persuasive inducement, I suppose, for them to follow the speaker for the sake of forming a party for a game. 258 XI.-NURSERY-SONGS. The earliest and simplest form in which the nursery song appears is the lullaby, which may be defined a gentle song used for the purpose of inducing sleep. The term was generally, though not exclusively, confined to nurses: Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby; The etymology is to be sought for in the verb lull, to sing gently, which Douce thinks is connected with λαλεω oι λάλλη. One of the earliest nursery lullabies that have descended to our day occurs in the play of Philotimus, 1583: Trylle the ball againe my Jacke, And be contente to make some play, With hey be bird now say not nay. Another is introduced into the comedy of Patient Grissel, printed in the year 1603: Hush, hush, hush, hush! And I dance mine own child, BILLY, MY SON. The following lines are very common in the English nursery, and resemble the popular German ditty of Grandmother Addercook, inserted in the Knaben Wunderhorn, and translated by Dr. Jamieson in the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities. The ballad of the Crowden Doo, Chambers, p. 205, bears, however, a far greater similarity to the German song. Compare, also, the ballad of Willie Doo, in Buchan's Ancient Songs, ii. 179. Where have you been to-day, Billy, my son? It is said there is some kind of a fairy legend connected with these lines, Billy having probably been visited by his mermaid mother. Nothing at all satisfactory has, however, yet been produced. It appears to bear a slight analogy to the old ballad, "Where have been all the day, my boy Willie," printed from a version obtained from Suffolk, in the Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 146;* and on this account we may here * Another version was obtained from Yorkshire: Where have you been all the day, My boy Billy? Where have you been all the day, My boy Billy? I have been all the day Courting of a lady gay; Although she is a young thing, And just come from her mammy! Is she fit to be thy love, My boy Billy? She is as fit to be my love, As my hand is for my glove, Is she fit to be thy wife, My boy Billy? She is as fit to be my wife, As my blade is for my knife; How old may she be, My boy Billy? Twice six, twice seven, Twice twenty and eleven ; Although she is, &c. you insert a copy of the pretty Scottish ballad, Tammy's Courtship: Oh, where ha' ye been a' day, My boy Tammy ? My boy Tammy? Where ha' ye been a' day, I've been by burn and flow'ry brae, Just come frae her mammy. And where gat ye that young thing, My boy Tammy? And where gat ye that young thing, My boy Tammy? I gat her down in yonder how, For her poor mammy. What said you to the bonny bairn, My boy Tammy? What said you to the bonny bairn, My boy Tammy? She said she'd tell her mammy. I held her to my beating breast, My young, my smiling lammy; My young, my smiling lammy: The smile gaed aff her bonny face, I maunna leave my mammy: The ballad of Lord Randal, printed by Sir Walter Scott, may, after all, furnish the true solution to the meaning of our nursery rhyme, and I am therefore induced to insert a version of it still popular in Scotland, in which the hero of the song is styled Laird Rowland: Ah! where have you been, Lairde Rowlande, my son? Ah! where have you been, &c. I've been in the wild-woods, Oh! you've been at your true love's, Lairde Rowlande, my son! Oh! you've been at your true love's, &c. I've been at my true love's, What got you to dinner, Lairde Rowlande, my son? I got eels boil'd in brue, |