OLD King Cole I. Was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he; He called for his pipe, And he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three. Every fiddler, he had a fiddle, And a very fine fiddle had he; Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the Oh, there's none so rare, As can compare fiddlers.] With King Cole and his fiddlers three! The traditional Nursery Rhymes of England commence with a legendary satire on King Cole, who reigned in Britain, as the old chroniclers inform us, in the third century after Christ. According to Robert of Gloucester, he was the father of St. Helena, and if so, Butler must be wrong in ascribing an obscure origin to the celebrated mother of Constantine. King Cole was a brave and popular man in his day, and ascended the throne of Britain on the death of Asclepiod, amidst the acclamations of the people, or, as Robert of Gloucester expresses himself, the "fcle was tho of this lond y-paid wel y-nou." At Colchester there is a large earthwork, supposed to have been a Roman amphitheatre, which goes popularly by the name of "King Cole's kitchen." According to Jeffrey of Monmouth, King Cole's daughter was well skilled in music, but we unfortunately have no evidence to show that her father was attached to that science, further than what is contained in the foregoing lines, which are of doubtful antiquity. The following version of the song is of the seventeenth century, the one given above being probably a modernization : Good King Cole, He call'd for his bowl, And he call'd for fidlers three: And there was fiddle fiddle, And twice fiddle fiddle, For 'twas my lady's birth-day; And come to be merry.] 11. WHEN good king Arthur ruled this land, He stole three pecks of barley-meal, A bag-pudding the king did make, The king and queen did eat thereof, And what they could not eat that night, [The following song relating to Robin Hood, the celebrated outlaw, is wel! known at Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, where it constitutes one of the nursery series.] ROBIN HOOD, Robin Hood, Is in the mickle wood! Robin Hood, Robin Hood, green weeds. Little John, Little John, If he comes no more, IV. [The following lines were obtained in Oxfordshire. The story to which it alludes is related by Matthew Paris.] ONE moonshiny night As I sat high, Waiting for one To come by; The boughs did bend, My heart did ache To see what hole the fox did make. [The following perhaps refers to Joanna of Castile, who visited the court of Henry the Seventh, in the year 1506.] I HAD a little nut tree, nothing would it bear me, And all was because of my little nut tree. me. VI. From a MS, in the old Royal Library, in the British Museum, the exact reference to which is mislaid. It is written, if I recollect rightly, in a hand of the time of Henry VIII, in an older manuscript.] We make no spare Of John Hunkes' mare; Think she will die; He thought it good To put her in the wood, To seek where she might ly dry; If the mare should chance to fale, Then the crownes would for her sale. |