There was a wee wifie row't up in a blanket,
Nineteen times as hie as the moon;
And what did she there I canna declare,
For in her oxter she bure the sun.
"Wee wifie, wee wifie, wee wifie," quo' I,
"O what are ye doin' up there sae hie?"
"I'm blowin' the cauld cluds out o' the sky."
"Weel dune, weel dune, wee wifie!" quo' I.
(1870, p. 34.)
I have come across a verse sung on Earl Grey and Lord Brougham, written in 1835, which may have been in imitation of this song:—
[Pg 27] Mother Bunch shall we visit the moon?
Come, mount on your broom, I'll stick on a spoon,
Then hey to go, we shall be there soon ... etc.
Mother Bunch is a familiar character of British folk-lore, who figures in old chapbooks as a keeper of old-world saws, and gives advice in matters matrimonial. One of the earliest accounts of her is Pasquill's Jests with the Merriments of Mother Bunch, extant in several editions, which was reprinted by Hazlitt in Old English Jestbooks, 1864, Vol. III. There are also Mother Bunch's Closet newly broke open, Mother Bunch's Golden Fortune Teller, and Mother Bunch's Fairy Tales, published by Harris in 1802. The name also occurs in Mother Osborne's Letter to the Protestant Dissenters rendered into English Metre by Mother Bunch, 1733. Mother Bunch, like Mother Goose and Mother Shipton, may be a traditional name, for Mother Bunch has survived in connections which suggest both the wise woman and the witch.
Another old song which figures in early nursery collections is as follows:—
[Pg 28] What care I how black I be?
Twenty pounds will marry me;
If twenty won't, forty shall—
I am my mother's bouncing girl.
(c. 1783, p. 57.)
Chappell mentions a song called, What care I how fair she be, which goes back to before 1620.[18] The words of these songs seem to have suggested a parody addressed to Zachary Macaulay, the father of the historian, who pleaded the cause of the slaves. The Bill for the abolition of slavery was passed in 1833, and the following quatrain was sung with reference to it:—
What though now opposed I be?
Twenty peers will carry me.
If twenty won't, thirty will,
For I'm His Majesty's bouncing Bill.
(N. & Q., 8, XII, 48.)
Another so-called nursery rhyme which is no more than a popular song has been traced some way back in history by Halliwell, who gives it in two variations:—
Three blind mice, see how they run!
They all run after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such fools in your life—
Three blind mice!
(1846, p. 5.)