NURSERY LORE. The folklore of children. The material may he separated into two classes, according as it consists of traditional sayings and usages which have been handed down by mothers and nurses, or of customs maintained and transmitted by the children themselves. To the forme• class belong those nurser• rhymes and jingles which are ascribed to :Mother Goose, a name adapted from the French. in 1697 Charles Perrault issued a few tales, popular in origin but. of literary ornamentation. which he called ('oaks de ma Pow. This designation was not invented by Perrault, for the goose had long had a popular repute as a story-teller. About 1760 .T. Newbery, the first publisher of Imoks for children, produced a little collection of rhymes to which he gave t he 11/11110 of 1/01hr r lioose's Melody. In 1810 J. Kitson brought. out Gurfon's Garland. or the Vursery Parnassus, in which he included some rhymes not. given In' Newhery. Between 182•t and 1827 Munroe and Francis. Boston, .Nlass., issued an expanded edition under the title of .1/o/ber GooRe's or tlelodies Complete, reprinted in 1833 as Mother goose's Melodies, and the popularity of this publication may have something to do with the widespread acceptance of the name. l'p to this time nursery rhymes were not learned from books, but repeated by word of mouth; it seems likely that the tradi tional stock was similar to that which has found a place in print.
More euriou*, from the point of view of folk lore, are the games played by children, often to the accompaniment of rhymed formulmi. These are for the most part of ancient origin, and although at the present time extinct or mori bund, have been traditionally current for cen turies. Allowing for minor variations, American game-rhymes are very similar to those of Great Britain. France, and Germany. Such correspond ence, formerly interpreted to signify a remote common descent, is now known to be the result of intercommunication. The games, and the formulas used in playing them, were not origi nally the property of children, but indifferently employed by both old and young. These customs
did not one their origin to peasants; on the contrary. they were introduced and supported by the higher strata of society. Of the games, some have a religious character, or at least were formerly interpreted as possessing religious significance; for example, a sport called 'Weigh ing,' in which a player is carried by two others. each of whom grasps with right hand the left hand of his fellow, constitutes an imitation of the Last Judgment, in which the soul is to be weighed to determine its destination for heaven or hell. The game of 'London Bridge,' in which the line of participants is made to pass under an arch formed by the lifted hands of two keep ers, has been supposed to have had its source in imitation of foundation sacrifices, in which a human being was interred under the bridge in order to insure its stability. A drama enacted by girls, called 'Old Witch,' sets forth the rob bery of children by a limping cannibal (lemon, the devouring of the victims, and their resuscita tion by the mother; the witch who figures in this amusement is of the same class as the destroyer of children known to the ancient Greeks as Lamia or Empusa. The well-known childish dance in which is imitated the sowing of oats, etc., may go hack to a rite intended to insure the ripening of the crops. Guessing games, in which the object is to win the counters of the adversary, seem analogous to those played in the time of Xenophon, while that in which the opponent is required to guess the number of fingers which may be held up is similar to one depicted on Egyptian pyramids.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Consult: Bolton. The CountingBibliography. Consult: Bolton. The Counting- out Rhymes of Children (London, 1888) ; Whit more, The Original Mother Goose's Melody, reproduction in facsimile (Boston, 18Q2); Halli well-Phillipps, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1842) ; Green, A History of Nursery Rhymes (ib., 189Q) ; Gomme, Traditional British (lames (London, 1894) : Haddon. The Study of Man (New York, 1898) ; Newell, Games and Bongs of American. Children (2d ed., Boston, 1903).