The word crowdy occurs also as a verb in one of the numerous nursery rhymes referring to scenes of revelry, at which folk-humour pictured the cat making music:—
[Pg 33] Come dance a jig to my granny's pig,
With a rowdy, rowdy, dowdy;
Come dance a jig to my granny's pig,
And pussy cat shall crowdy.
(1846, p. 141.)
This verse and a number of others go back to the festivities that were connected with Twelfth Night. Some of them preserve expressions in the form of burdens which have no apparent sense; in other rhymes the same expressions have the force of a definite meaning. Probably the verses in which the words retain a meaning have the greater claim to antiquity.
Thus among the black-letter ballads is a song[23] which is found also in the nursery collection of 1810 under the designation The Lady's Song in Leap Year.
Roses are red, diddle diddle, lavender's blue,
If you will have me, diddle diddle, I will have you.
Lillies are white, diddle diddle, rosemary's green,
When you are king, diddle, diddle, I will be queen.
Call up your men, diddle, diddle, set them to work,
Some to the plough, diddle, diddle, some to the cart.
Some to make hay, diddle, diddle, some to cut corn,
While you and I, diddle, diddle, keep the bed warm.
(1810, p. 46.)
Halliwell cites this song in a form in which the words are put into the lips of the king, and associates it with the amusements of Twelfth Night:—
Lavender blue, fiddle faddle, lavender green.
When I am king, fiddle faddle, you shall be queen, etc.
(1849, p. 237.)
The expression diddle diddle according to Murray's Dictionary means to make music without the utterance of words, while fiddle faddle is said to indicate nonsense, and to fiddle is to fuss. But both words seem to go back to the association of dancing, as is suggested by the songs on Twelfth Night, or by the following nursery rhyme which refers to the same celebration.
A cat came fiddling out of the barn,
With a pair of bagpipes under her arm,
She could sing nothing but fiddle cum fee,
The mouse has married the humble bee;
Pipe, cat, dance, mouse;
We'll have a wedding in our good house.
(1842, p. 102.)
The following variation of this verse occurs in the Nursery Songs published by Rusher:—