57
'Let's Go A-Hunting,' Says Richard to Robert
The old English folk song of the hunting of the wren on St.
Stephen's Day, recorded in Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England,
Northall's English Folk-Rhymes, and Miss Mason's Nursery Rhymes
and Country Songs, known also, at least in earlier times, in Scot-
land (Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs ii 210-11 of the
1869 reprint), remembered in Yorkshire (JFSS v 76), Esse.x (Hen-
derson's Folk-Eore of the Northern Counties 125), Oxfordshire
(JFSS V 77-8). Gloucestershire (FSUT 184-5), and the Isle of
Man (JFSS vii 177-80), persists only fragmentarily in American
tradition: in Massachusetts (FSONE 230-3), Texas (PFLST vi
70-1), and Nebraska (ABS 235-6). It is listed in Miss Pound's
Midwestern syllabus. In these American texts the wren has some-
times disappeared entirely, as it has in our North Carolina version.
From Buffalo, New York, is reported (JAFL vi 231-2) a song
about the wren and St. Stephen's Day, but there are no hunters.
For the mythological background of the rite as preserved in the
Isle of Man, see The Golden Bough, Part V, vol. 11 (1912 edition),
pp. 317-21. Frazer explains the killing of the wren as a case of
tlie king sacrificed — the wren, he says, is called a king by the an-
cient Greeks and Romans and the modern Italians, Spaniards,
French, Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, English, and Welsh.
No title but the first line. Contributed in August 1916 by Mrs. E. E.
Moffitt as "words of a song sung by 'Aunt Sophy,' the mammy-nurse
of the children of Hon. Josephus Daniels and wife Addie (Bagley)
Daniels."
1 'Let's go a-hunting,' says Richard to Robert,
'Let's go a-hunting,' says Robin to Bobbin,
'Well, well," says Robin to Bobbin,
'Well, well,' says John all alone.
2 'Let's kill a squirrel,' says Richard to Robert.
'Let's kill a squirrel.' says John all alone.
'Let's kill a squirrel,' says every one.
^ The other text, more logically, reads "My God, give power."
3l6 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
3 'Shoot, shoot,' says Richard to Robert,
'Shoot, shoot,' says Robin to Bobbin,
'Shoot, shoot,' says John all alone,
'Shoot, shoot,' says every one.