CHILDRENS LITERATURE: THE ORAL TRADITION

RESOURCES

• Knickerbocker Magazine 1859 Review of E & S Ballads
  It has a section devoted to the work done by F J Child. In 1857 Little Brown published the eight-volumes of Child's "English and Scottish Ballads", this as part of an English poets series.  Dissatisfied with it, he then set to work on the "definitive" ESPB.  It is this  early set the Knickerbock review must refer to Dr. Knickerbocker children's chant.
• Lullaby-like songs are universal the world over.
• Online Nursery Rhyme Cards
  To encourage both the school-home connection, as well as the positive influences of families reading together, this site offers more than seventy illustrated nursery rhymes to print as cards and send home with students. They can also be used in the classroom, collected, reviewed, and sent home as a little book.
• NURSERY RHYMES Origins and History
• TEACH HISTORY THROUGH SONG
• INTEGRATE THE ORAL TRADITION INTO THE CLASSROOM
• LEARN ALL ABOUT AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC "Plea for the Old Ballads" [1914 Sep 18 "far superior to the Present Day Lyrics"]. "Put a volume of fine old ballads on the piano and begin you child's education not only in song but romance."
• STANDARDS FOR FOLKLIFE EDUCATION FOLK MUSIC
• FOLKLORE, MUSIC, AND TRADITIONAL CULTURE compilation of excellent best of breed online collections.
• ALSO SEE SONGS taught across American Schools in the early 1900's.
• An authenitc street scene in the film The Naked City 1948 where you'll enjoy watching several girls saying In came the Doctor In cam the nurse in came the lady with the alligator purse rhyme while jumping rope. You'll feel like you're back in New York City in the 1940's!" This is the city as it is. The children at play, the buildings in their naked stone." -- Narrator (Mark Hellinger)
• Find Nursery Rhymes
• Early Literacy:A Rhyme a week all through the school year.

LITERATURE

National Children's Folksong Repository
Children's playground songs and rhymes are telling their story.
They are spreading gossip.

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NCFRA Public Folklore Project built by the children of the United States,
Your kids can make history! Build the online archive integrate history, music and technology from your classroom. The Historic Electronic Online Archive of Children's Folksongs.

History is nothing more than story telling.
Have You Heard? Gossip Turns Out to Serve a Purpose
What is important is . . . Who Is Telling The Story!  Life Lessons Learned by hearing the stories.  All of history is one long story.

Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories
A Book for Bairns and Big Folk by Robert Ford

ALPHABET SONG

Swinging the Alphabet Song

Mary Had A Little Lamb 1851

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go

It followed her to school one day
School one day, school one day
It followed her to school one day
Which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school

And so the teacher turned it out,
Turned it out, turned it out,
And so the teacher turned it out,
But still it lingered near

And waited patiently about,
Patiently about, patiently about,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appear

'Why does the lamb love Mary so?'
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?
'Why does the lamb love Mary so?'
The eager children cry

'Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.'
Loves the lamb, you know, loves the lamb, you know
'Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.'
The teacher did reply

Mary's Little Lamb First Publication Date: 1830

Original Text: The Juvenile Miscellany, new series, V (Boston: Putnam and Hunt, 1830): 64. Facsimile in Yankee Doodle's Literary Sampler of Prose, Poetry, & Pictures Being an Anthology of Diverse Works Published for the Edification and/or Entertainment of Young Readers in America Before 1900, Selected from the Rare Book Collections of the Library of Congress and Introduced by Virginia Haviland and Margaret N. Coughlan (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974): 321-22. Z 1232 H38 1974 Robarts Library. Revised version in Sarah J. Hale's The School Song Book (Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1834): 14-15. Facsimile in Yankee Doodle's Literary Sampler, 162-63.

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day --
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.

And so the Teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.
And then he ran to her and laid
His head upon her arm,
As if he said -- "I'm not afraid --
You'll shield me from all harm."

"What makes the lamb love Mary so,"
The little children cry;
"O, Mary loves the lamb you know,
The Teacher did reply,
"And you each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind."

Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
and the dish ran away with the spoon.

"Cat dancing" and "dancing with cats" is not a new phenomenon
The earliest written record of a cat dancing with a person dates from 1692 and evidence of the practice is clearly alluded to in the earliest versions of that rather strange nursery rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such craft
And the dish ran away with the spoon

In the original version, which is believed to have been a witches' chant, the opening line is, "Heigh diddle daddle". This is obviously an invitation to the dance; "heigh" being a call of encouragement and to "diddle daddle" meaning to shake or move from side to side in a series of jerks.
("Diddle daddle" was later changed to "diddle diddle" around 1760 when it was popularized as a nursery rhyme so as the first line would rhyme with "fiddle" in the second.)
The earliest version of the second line reads, "The cat's fiddle faddle" which is a derogatory reference to the nonsensical craze of joyful leaping about with cats. A later version of the second line reads, "The cat has the fiddle", which refers not only to the wailing fiddle–like sound the cat makes but also to the fact that it is possessed of a kind of musical power which is able to get us up and dancing. The use of the word "catgut" to describe what the strings of a violin are made of, when they are actually made of sheep's intestines, is further evidence of a belief in the musical or bewitching qualities of the cat¹s inner being.

"The cows jumped over the moon" tells of the way in which cats are known to "spook" cows in the fields at night and send them rushing madly about. However, there is a clear inference here that the cows are willing partners in this "dance" and even today being "over the moon" means being deliriously happy.

"The little dog laughed to see such craft" is a clear reference to Canis Minor or Procyon, the Lesser Dog Star in the constellation of the Little Dog. The suggestion here is that this "craft" or art has a far wider cosmic link and implies that the power of the universe is able to be channelled positively by dancing with cats.

"The dish ran about like a spoon". "The dish" here, is another name for a maid, usually a milk maid, and a "spoon" or spoony is an archaic term for a crazy person. So in this last line we have cat dancing making the maid rush about like a crazy person.
The verse clearly suggests that the practice of cat dancing can have negative consequences especially for females, leading not only to lunacy in cows, but in the case of maids, to a complete loss of proper muscle control. There is little doubt that this was precisely the message the verse was designed to convey and it is likely to have been vigorously promoted by the Church in the middle ages as it wished to encourage the belief that, "...those who durst jig by the cat do cavort with the devil hemself"."

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub-a-dub-dub
three men in a tub
and who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
the candlestick maker,
turn them out, knaves, all three

Old King Cole

Old King Cole
was a merry old soul,  and a very old soul was he;
he called for his pipe
in the middle of the night
and he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler had a fine fiddle,
and a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh there's none so rare
as can compare
with King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Little Jack Horner

Little Jack Horner
sat in the corner
eating a Christmas pie,
he put in his thumb
and pulled out a plum
and said "what a good boy am I".

Diddle Diddle Dumpling

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John
went to bed with his trousers on,
one shoe off
one shoe on,
diddle diddle dumpling, my son John.

Jack Sprat

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean;
And so betwixt the two of them,
They licked the platter clean.