Gifts From Over the Sea- Muchler (Michigan) 1879
[From: Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan by Emelyn-Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press: 1939. Since A and B are identical they are both presented here. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
188. GIFTS FROM OVER THE SEA
For texts similar to the Michigan forms and a discussion of this riddle song from the fifteenth century see Child, I, 415, and Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, p. 99, note. See also Eddy, No. 4, Henry, p. 25; Sharp, II, 190-191; and Tolman, JAFL, XXIX, 157-158.
Version A was sung in 1934 by Mr. Charles Muchler, Kalkaska, who learned the song about 1879.
Version A
1 I had four brothers over the sea,
Perry merry dinctum dominee;
And each sent a present unto me;
Partum, quartum, perry dee centum,
Perry merry dinctum dominee.
2 One sent a cherry that had no stone,
One sent a chicken without any bone.
3 The next sent a blanket without any thread,
And the next sent a book that couldn't be read.
4 When the cherry's in the blossom, it has no stone,
When the chicken's in the egg, it has no bone.
5 When the wool's on the sheep, it has no thread,
When the book's on the press, it can't be read.
Version B
Sung in 1937 by Miss Helen Crane, Detroit: She learned the song from her father when she was a child in Hillsdale. A text of five stanzas, practically identical with A.