This is the knife with a handle of horn,
that killed the cock that crowed in the morn,
that wakened the priest all shaven and shorn,
that married the man all tattered and torn,
unto the maiden all forlorn,
that milked the cow with a crumpled horn,
that tossed the dog over the barn,
that worried the cat that killed the rat
that ate the malt that lay in the house
that Jack built.
The greater part of this piece consists of rhymed verse, and deals with matters of courtship. The idea of a cock sacrificed on the wedding-day is certainly heathen in origin, but its introduction forms a new departure when we come to compare this piece with its foreign parallels and with the story of The Old Woman and Her Pig. These pieces are all set in the same form, and all introduce a regular sequence of relative powers.
The Old Woman and Her Pig was first printed by Halliwell (1842, p. 219). It tells how the woman found sixpence, and how she set out for market, and bought a pig which on the way back refused to jump over the stile. In order to break the spell that had fallen on it, she summoned to her aid: dog—stick—fire—water—ox—butcher—rope—rat—cat—cow. The cow finally gave the milk required by the cat, which set the other powers going, and thus enabled the woman to get home that night. Halliwell was impressed by the antiquity of this sequence, and included in his collection a translation of a Hebrew chant which has considerable likeness to the tale of The Old Woman and Her Pig. This chant is told in the first person. It begins:—
A kid, a kid my father bought
For two pieces of money,
A kid, a kid.
Then came the cat and ate the kid,
That my father bought,
For two pieces of money.
A kid, a kid.
(1842, p. 6.)
It further introduces dog—staff—fire—water—ox—butcher—angel of death—Holy One.
The Hebrew chant of the kid was printed in Venice as far back as 1609, and was made the subject of the learned Latin dissertation De Haedo by Probst von der Hardt in 1727 (R., p. 153). It was again discussed by P. N. Leberecht in 1731.[51] The chant forms part of the Jewish liturgy, and is still recited in the original Hebrew or in the vernacular as part of a religious ceremonial at Easter. Opinions on the origin and the meaning of the chant differ. One learned rabbi interpreted it as setting forth how each power in creation is kept within bounds by a power that stands above it. It teaches how he who goes wrong is at the mercy of one stronger than himself. But according to another interpretation the Father who bought the kid was Jehovah himself, the kid was the Hebrew, the cat represented the Assyrians, the dog the Babylonians, and so forth; and the whole poem described the position of the Jews at the time of the Crusades.
The Hebrew chant and its relation to The Old Woman and her Pig engaged the attention of Professor Tylor, who remarked on the solemn ending of the Hebrew chant, which according to him may incline us to think that we really have before us this composition in something like its first form. "If so," he says, "then it follows that our familiar tale of the Old Woman who couldn't get the kid (or pig) over the stile, must be considered as a broken-down adaptation of this old Jewish poem."[52]
But the tale of the Old Woman taken in conjunction with This is the House that Jack built and its numerous foreign parallels, shows that these sequences of relative powers, far from being broken-down adaptations, are at least as meaningful as the Hebrew chant. For the underlying conception in all cases is that a spell has fallen on an object which man is appropriating to his use. The spell extends to everything, be it man or beast, that comes within the range of its influence, and the unmaking of the spell necessitates going back step by step to the point at which it originated.
Halliwell compared a piece current in Denmark with This is the House that Jack built:—