The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought / Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day

by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

or:—

'Rain, rain, go away,
And come again on washing day,'

or, more quaintly, yet:—

'Rain, rain, go to Spain;
Fair weather, come again,'

and, sooner or later, the rain will depart. If there be a rainbow, the juvenile devotee must look at it all the time. The Sunderland version runs thus:—

'Rain, rain, pour down
Not a drop in our town,
But a pint and a gill
All a-back of Building Hill.'"

Mr. Henderson remarks that "such rhymes are in use, I believe, in every nursery in England," and they are certainly well known, in varying forms in America. A common English charm for driving away the rainbow brings the child at once into the domain of the primitive medicine-man. Schoolboys were wont, "on the appearance of a rainbow, to place a couple of straws or twigs across on the ground, and, as they said, 'cross out the rainbow.' The West Riding [Yorkshire] receipt for driving away a rainbow is: 'Make a cross of two sticks and lay four pebbles on it, one at each end'" (469. 24, 25).

Mr. Gregor, for northeastern Scotland, reports the following as being sung or shouted at the top of the voice by children, when a rainbow appears (246. 153, 154):—

(1)
"Rainbow, rainbow,
Brack an gang hame,
The coo's wi' a calf,
The yow's wi' a lam,
An' the coo 'ill be calvt,
Or ye win hame."

(2)
"Rainbow, rainbow,
Brack an gang hame;
Yir father an yir mither's aneth the layer-stehm;
Yir coo's calvt, yir mare's foalt,
Yir wife'll be dead
Or ye win hame."