Rhymes were said or sung by children and young people when swinging. They were of the same character, and in many instances the same as those given in “[See-saw]” and “[Shuttlefeather],” and were used formerly for purposes of divination. The following extract, from the Pall Mall Gazette of Sept. 19th, 1895, seems to indicate an early notion connected with swinging. It is taken from one of the articles in that paper upon Jabez Balfour’s diary during his residence in the Argentine Republic:—“On the 2nd November he (Balfour) mentions a curious Bolivian custom on All Souls’ Day, when ‘they erect high swings, and old and young swing all day long, in the hope that while they swing they may approach the spirits of their departed friends as they fly from Purgatory to Paradise.’ Two days later he adds: ‘I have to-day heard another explanation of the Bolivian practice of swinging on All Souls’ Day. They swing as high as they can so as to reach the topmost branches of the trees, and whenever they are thereby able to pull off a branch they release a soul from Purgatory.’”—Notes and Queries, 8th series, vi. 345. With this may be compared one of the methods and words used while swinging which I remember playing, namely, that while swinging, either in a room or garden, the object was to endeavour to touch either a beam in the ceiling or the top branches of a tree, singing at the same time a rhyme of which I only recollect this fragment:
One to earth and one to heaven,
And this to carry my soul to heaven.
The last was said when the effort was made to touch the ceiling or tree with the feet.—(A. B. Gomme.)
Miss Chase has sent me the following rhymes:
I went down the garden
And there I found a farth’ng;
I gave it to my mother
To buy a little brother;
The brother was so cross
I sat him on the horse;
The horse was so bandy
I gave him a drop (or glass) of brandy;
The brandy was so strong
I set him on the pond;
The pond was so deep
I sent him off to sleep;
The sleep was so sound
I set him on the ground;
The ground was so flat
I set him on the cat;
The cat ran away
With the boy on his back;
And a good bounce [A great push here]
Over the high gate wall.
Said while swing stops itself:—
Die, pussy, die,
Shut your little eye,
When you wake,
Find a cake;
Die, pussy, die.
—Deptford.
Wingy, wongy,
Days are longy,
Cuckoo and the sparrow;
Little dog has lost his tail,
And he shall be hung to-morrow.
—Marylebone.