OLD LD 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 "folc 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; II. WHEN good king Arthur ruled this land, A bag-pudding the king did make, The king and queen did eat thereof, And noblemen beside; And what they could not eat that night, The queen next morning fried. III. [The following song relating to Robin Hood, the celebrated outlaw, is well known at Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, where it constitutes one of the nursery series.] ROBIN HOOD, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Little John, Little John, 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. V. [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 But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear; The king of Spain's daughter came to visit 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; To seek where she might ly dry; VII. [From MS. Sloane, 1489, fol. 19, written in the time of Charles I.] THE king of France, and four thousand men, They drew their swords, and put them up again. VIII. [In a tract, called 'Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the North,' 4to Lond. 1642, p. 3, this is called Old Tarlton's Song." It is perhaps a parody on the popular epigram of "Jack and Jill." I do not know the period of the battle to which it appears to allude, but Tarlton died in the year 1588, so that the rhyme must be earlier.] THE King of France went up the hill, The king of France came down the hill, IX. THE king of France, with twenty thousand men, Went up the hill, and then came down again; The king of Spain, with twenty thousand more, Climb'd the same hill the French had climb'd before. |