Uncle Jan Dory.
“I’ll tell ‘ee a story ‘bout Uncle Jan Dory,
Who lived by the side of a well,
He went to a ‘plomp’ (pump), and got himself drunk,
And under the table he fell.”
The Cornish peasantry of the last century were very fond of riddles, but most of them will not bear repetition; they are (as well as many of their sayings and rhymes) much too broad for the taste of this generation, and would only be tolerated in the days when “a spade was called a spade.” There are two exceptions that I know worth transcribing; one has already appeared with its answer, through the Rev. S. Rundle, in Transactions Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 1885–86.
“Riddle me! riddle me right!
Guess where I was to last Saturday night.
Up in the old ivy tree,
Two old foxes under me,
Digging a grave to bury me.
First I heard the wind blow,
Then I heard the cock crow,
Then I saw the chin-champ chawing up his bridle,
Then I saw the work-man working hisself idle.”
Answer.—A young woman made an appointment to meet her sweetheart; arriving first at the place, she climbed into an ivy-covered tree to await his coming. He came in company with another man, and not seeing her “the two old foxes” began to dig a grave, in which from her hiding-place she heard that after murdering they intended putting her. The “chin-champ” was the horse on which they rode away, when they failed to discover her. “Working hisself idle,” is working in vain.
“As I went over London bridge
Upon a cloudy day,
I met a fellow, clothed in yellow,
I took him up and sucked his blood,
And threw his skin away.”
What was he? Answer.—An orange.
With a nonsensical acrostic on the word Finis, well known in the beginning of this century, I must end this (I fear) long, rambling work.
“F—for Francis,
I—for Jancis,
N—for Nich’las Bony;
I—for John the water-man,
S—for Sally Stony.”