[COCKLE-BREAD.]
My granny is sick, and now is dead, [56]
And we'll go mould some cockle-bread;
Up with my heels and down with my head,
And this is the way to mould cockle-bread.
| [56] | Another version says, "and I wish she was dead, that I may go mould," &c., which, if correct, may be supposed to mean, "My granny is ill, and I wish she was dead, that I may use a charm for obtaining a husband." |
A very old practice of young women, moving as if they were kneading dough, and repeating the above lines, which are sometimes varied thus:
Cockeldy bread, mistley cake,
When you do that for our sake.
The entire explanation of this, which is not worth giving here, may be seen in Thoms's Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 95. An allusion to cockle-bread occurs as early as 1595, in Peele's singular play of the Old Wives Tale.
[A DRINKING CUSTOM.]
A pie sat on a pear tree,
A pie sat on a pear tree,
A pie sat on a pear tree,
Heigh ho! heigh ho! heigh ho!
These lines are sung by a person at the table after dinner. His next neighbour then sings "Once so merrily hopped she," during which the first singer is obliged to drink a bumper; and should he be unable to empty his glass before the last line is sung, he must begin again till he succeeds. The next line is "Twice so merrily hopped she," sung by the next person under a similar arrangement, and so on; beginning again after "Thrice so merrily hopped she, heigh ho! heigh ho! heigh ho!" till the ceremony has been repeated around the table. It is to be hoped so absurd a practice is not now in fashion.
When a boy finds anything, and another sees him stoop for it, if the latter cries halves before he has picked it up, he is, by schoolboy law, entitled to half of it. This right may, however, be negatived, if the finder cries out first—