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

6. Of children's toys and playthings it is sometimes said, when they are very fragile, "They will last from twelve o'clock till midday" (431.1.43).

7. When any one praises her child in the presence of the mother, the latter says, "It's a good child when asleep" (431. I. 51).

8. In the winter-time, when the child asks its mother for an apple, the latter may reply, "the apples are piping in the tree," meaning that there are no longer any apples on the tree, but the sparrows are sitting there, crying and lamenting. In Meiderich the locution is "Apples have golden stems," i.e. they are rare and dear in winter-time (431. I. 75).

9. When the child says, "I can't sit down," the mother may remark, "Come and sit on my thumb; nobody has ever fallen off it" (i.e. because no one has ever tried to sit on it) (431. I. 92).

10. When a lazy child, about to be sent out upon an errand, protests that it does not know where the person to whom the message is to be sent lives, and consequently cannot do the errand, the mother remarks threateningly, "I'll show where Abraham ground the mustard," i.e. "I give you a good thrashing, till the tears come into your eyes (as when grinding mustard)" (431. I. 105).

11. When a child complains that a sister or brother has done something to hurt him, the mother's answer is, "Look out! He shall have water in the cabbage, and go barefoot to bed" (431. I. 106).

12. Sometimes their parents or elders turn to children and ask them "if they would like to be shown the Bremen geese." If the child says yes, he is seized by the ears and head with both hands and lifted off the ground. In some parts of Germany this is called "showing Rome," and there are variants of the practice in other lands (431. II. 14).

13. When a child complains of a sore in its eye, or on its neck, the answer is: "That will get well before you are a great-grandmother" (431. II. 50).

14. When one child asks for one thing and another for something else, the mother exclaims petulantly, "One calls out 'lime,' the other 'stones.'" The reference is to the confusion of tongues at Babel, which is assumed to have been of such a nature that one man would call out "lime," and another "stones" (431. II. 53).

15. When a child asks for half a slice of bread instead of a whole one, the mother may say, "Who doesn't like a whole, doesn't like a half either" (431. II. 43).