English Versions 46 A. The Riddle Song
[Below (A, B, and C) are three main variants of Child 46 Appendix: The Riddle Song. Child gives two versions in his narrative to No. 46 Captain Webberburn's Courtship.
A) "The Riddle Song" or "I Gave My Love a Cherry" also "I'll Give my Love an Apple"
B) "Perrie Merrie Dixie Dominie" (Nursery Rhyme Version titled "The Four Sisters" or such) A different song using nearly the same riddles.
C) "Go No More a-Rushing"- English variant of same riddle. Baring-Gould collected several versions and variants. I've included one from 1888, his version A.
R. Matteson 2012]
CONTENTS:
1) I have a ȝong suster- Sloane MS c.1430 Child A
2) My Love Gave Me A Cherry (Scotland) c. 1650
3) The Four Sisters- Halliwell 1849; Child B
4) No More Go A-Rushing- Chappell 1855
5) We'll Go No More A-Rushing- (Derbyshire) 1862
6) A Paradox (Go No More A-Rushing)- Mitford 1877 Mason
7) Perry Merry Dictum, Domine- Mason 1877
8) Don't You Go A-Rushing- Helmore (Devon) 1888
9) Go No More A-Rushing- Barrett (London) 1891
10) I Will Give My Love an Apple- Burrows 1906
I Have Four Sisters- BBC Recording 1972
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Notes and queries - Page 401; 1866 -
NURSERY Rhyme. (3rd S. ix. 350.)—The following I believe to be the correct version of the nursery rhyme referred to by your correspondent Cpl: —
" I had four brothers over the sea;
They each sent a Christmas present to me.
The first sent a cherry without any stone,
The second sent a bin! without any bone ;
The third sent a blanket without any thread;
The fourth sent a book no man could read.
How could there be a cherry without any stone?
How could there be a bird without any bone?
How could there be a blanket without any thread?
How could there be a book no man could read?
When the cherry's in the blossom it has no stone;
When the bird is in the egg; it has no bone;
When the blanket's in the fleece it has no thread;
When the book is in the press no man can read."
F. G. W.
For this nursery rhyme, see Macmillan's Magasine, vol. v. p. 248. Walter W. Skea't.
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Belgravia: a London magazine: Volume 95 - Page 399; 1898
Milkmaids and their songs
In Queen Elizabeth's time they used to sing "Go no more a-Rushing":
Go no more a-rushing, maids, in May;
Go no more a-rushing, maids, I pray;
Go no more a-rushing, or you'll fall a-blushing;
Bundle up your rushes and haste away,
You promised me a cherry without any stone,
You promised me a chicken without any bone,
You promised me a ring that has no rim at all,
And you promised me a bird without a gall.
After a verse of questioning as to how such things could be, the answers are given:
When the cherry's in the flower it has no stone,
When the chicken's in the egg it has no bone,
When the ring it is a-making it has no rim at all,
And the dove it is a bird without a gall.
Possibly, as the floors in the days of Good Queen Bess were always rush-strewn, and the rushes for this purpose gathered by the maidens of the house, this comical riddlesong has originated with them, and gradually found its way into the dairy.
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A Scottish version is quoted in William Dauney's Ancient Scot[t]ish Melodies (1838; AMS, 1973, pp. 180-81, footnote b; without music):
A friend of ours mentions the following fragment of a song which used to be sung to a very aged relative of his when a child:--
"I have a true love beyond the sea,
Para mee dicksa do mee nee;
And mony a love-token he sends to me,
With a rattum, pattum,
Para mee dicksa do mee nee."
The "para me, dixi, Domine," is an obvious adaptation of a part of the service; and we have no doubt that other relics of the same sort could be pointed out.