Another rhyme of this class begins:—
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, etc.
(1842, p. 129.)
And the time-honoured rhyme, "When a twister a twisting," etc., has been traced back by Halliwell to a collection of 1674. This has a French parallel:—
Si un cordonnier accordant veut accorder sa corde, etc.
I do not know if the English or the French version is the older one.
CHAPTER XIII
CHANTS OF THE CREED
THE game of Twelve Days, especially in one French version, shows that instruction was conveyed by the cumulative mode of recitation. There are many pieces enlarging on matters of belief—Hebrew, Christian, Druidical, and heathen—which in the same way associate numbers with objects. The comparison of these pieces suggests that they are all derived from one original source. They may fitly be termed Chants of the Creed.