When I was a little boy my mammy kept me in, But now I am a great boy I'm fit to serve the king; I can hand a musket, and I can smoke a pipe, And I can kiss a pretty girl at twelve o'clock at night. CCXCIV. Tell tale, tit! Your tongue shall be slit, CCXCV. Multiplication is vexation, The Rule of Three does puzzle me, TWELFTH CLASS—CUSTOMS.* CCXCVI. [The following is sung at the Christmas mummings in * This class might be extended to great length, but I shall content myself with giving a few, and referring to Sir H. Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities for more. CCXCVII. Dibbity, dibbity, dibbity, doe, And I'll go. Dibbity, dibbity, dibbity, ditter, A bit of a fritter. CCXCVIII. [It was probably the custom, on repeating these lines, to hold the snail to a candle, in order to make it quit the shell. In Normandy it was the practice at Christmas for boys to run round fruit trees, with lighted torches, singing these lines: Taupes et mulots, Sortez de vos clos, Sinon vous brulerai et la barbe et les os.] Snail, snail, come out of your hole, CCXCIX. I see the moon, and the moon sees me, CCC. [Aubrey, in his "Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme," gives another version of this song, as current in the seventeenth century, very curious, but unfortunately too indelicate to be printed. See Notes.) When I was a little girl, I wash'd my mother's dishes; I put my finger in my eye, And pull'd out little fishes. CCCI. Herrings, herrings, white and red, Ten a penny, Lent's dead. Rise, dame, and give an egg, Or else a piece of bacon. One for Peter, two for Paul, CCCII. [The unmarried ladies in the north address the new moon in the following lines:] All hail to the moon! all hail to thee! I prithee, good moon, declare to me ww |