Tom, however, paid dearly for his victories, for the exertions he made upon this celebrated occasion threw him into an illness which ultimately occasioned his death. But the hero was carried away by his godmother, the fairy queen, into the land of Faerie, and after the lapse of two centuries, he was suffered to return to earth, and again amuse men by his comical adventures. On one occasion, after his return from fairy-land, he jumped down a miller's throat, and played all manner of pranks on the poor fellow, telling him of all his misdeeds, for millers in former days were the greatest rogues, as everybody knows, that ever lived. A short time afterwards, Tom a second time is swallowed by a fish, which is caught, and set for sale at the town of Rye, where a steward haggles for it,—

Amongst the rest the steward came,

Who would the salmon buy,

And other fish that he did name,

But he would not comply.


The steward said, You are so stout,

If so, I'll not buy any.

So then bespoke Tom Thumb aloud,

"Sir, give the other penny!"


At this they began to stare,

To hear this sudden joke:

Nay, some were frighted to the heart,

And thought the dead fish spoke.


So the steward made no more ado,

But bid a penny more;

Because, he said, I never heard

A fish to speak before.

The remainder of the history, which details Tom's adventures with the queen, his coach drawn by six beautiful white mice, his escaping on the back of a butterfly, and his death in a spider's web, is undoubtedly a later addition to the original, and may therefore be omitted in this analysis. It is, in fact, a very poor imitation of the first part of the tale.

[III.—GAME-RHYMES.]

The most obvious method of arranging the rhymes employed in the amusements of children is to commence with the simple lines used by the nurse in the infantine toe, finger, and face-games, then proceeding to bo-peep, and concluding with the more complicated games, many of the latter possessing a dramatic character.

[TOE-GAMES.]

Harry Whistle, Tommy Thistle,

Harry Whible, Tommy Thible,

And little Oker-bell.

A game with the five toes, each toe being touched in succession as these names are cried. "This song affords a proof of the connexion between the English and Scandinavian rhymes. The last line, as it now stands, appears to mean nothing. The word oker, however, is the A.-S. æcer, Icel. akr, Dan. ager, and Swed. åker, pronounced oker, a field, and the flower is the field-bell."—Mr. Stephens's MS. The following lines are also used in a play with the toes:

Shoe the colt, shoe!

Shoe the wild mare!

Put a sack on her back,

See if she'll bear.

If she'll bear,

We'll give her some grains;

If she won't bear,

We'll dash out her brains.