Der har du det haus som Jacob bygde.
"Here hast thou the house that Jacob built."[53]
Many other versions of this tale are current in Germany and Scandinavia. In them it is sometimes a question of a house, sometimes of corn, oftenest of cutting oats or of garnering pears. The cumulative form is throughout adhered to. One German piece called Ist alles verlorn, "all is lost," begins:—
[Pg 123] Es kam eine Maus gegangen
In unser Kornehaŭs,
Die nahm das Korn gefangen,
In ŭnserm Kornehaŭs.
Die Maus das Korn,
Ist alles verlorn
In ŭnserm Kornehaŭs.
(Sim., p. 256.)
"There came a mouse into our corn-house, she seized the corn in our corn-house. The mouse, the corn, now all is lost in our corn-house."
The other powers are rat, cat, fox, wolf, bear, man, maid. This piece, like This is the House that Jack built, ends abruptly.
Among the less primitive variations of the tale is one recorded in Sonneberg (S., p. 102), and another in the north of France, which both substitute the name of Peter for that of Jack, that is a Christian name for a heathen one. In France the piece is called La Mouche, literally "the fly," but its contents indicate that not mouche but the Latin mus (mouse) was originally meant. The tale departs from the usual form, and has a refrain:—
Voici la maison que Pierre a bâtie,
Il sortait un rat de sa raterie,
Qui fit rentrer la mouch' dans sa moucherie:
[Pg 124] Rat à mouche,
Belle, belle mouche
Jamais je n'ai vu si belle mouche.
(D.B., p. 116.)
"This is the house that Peter built. A rat came out of a rat-hole, and made the fly go into the fly-hole. Rat to fly, lovely fly, never saw I so lovely a fly."
The other powers are dog, bear, man, maid, abbot, pope, devil.