The Lady on the Mountain by Nigel G.N. Kelsey 1985
[From Lore and Language, 1985. An understanding of "Madam," its variants, and antecedents is missing, however, the article covers many versions.
R. Matteson 2017]
The Lady on the Mountain: A Century of Play Rhyme Tradition
Nigel G.N. Kelsey
"On yonder hill there stands a lady.
Who she is I do not know.
All she wants is gold and silver.
All she wants is a nice young man."
Thus begins a sequence of rhymes in innumerable playgrounds etc., in many English speaking countries, usually accompanying skipping. Almost all versions are very similar, varying in two or three words. As the tradition is not passed on by adults from printed sources, there must be other reasons for the continuation of this fragment of poetry, when so much other play verse has changed to meet the requirements of today's children or has become extinct.
I will trace the development of this rhyme and its partners since the 1880s. In his book The Idiom of the People[1] James Reeves gives the texts of two related folksongs, from the manuscripts of the great folksong collector, Cecil Sharp. One begins:
On yonder hill there stands a creature
Who she is I do not know
I'll go and court her for her beauty
She must answer Yes or No
0 No John, No John, No John, No.
The other begins:
Yonder sits a spanish lady
Who she is I do not know
I'll go and court her for her beauty
Whether she answers Yes or No.
Verses three and four of this version give the following exchange:
Madam I have rings and jewels
Madam I have houses and lands
Madam I have the world of treasure
And all shall be at your command.
What cares I for rings and jewels
What cares I for houses and lands
What cares I for the world of treasure
So as I have a handsome man.
The lady in the first song says, "No", until her adulterous lover offers sexual familiarity in verse six, and they go to bed together in verse seven. The lady in the second song rejects wealth. She wants a handsome man but after being reminded that beauty soon fades, like a ripe apple becoming a rotten one, she also finishes up in bed with her lover, (verse seven). Incidentally the Spanish lady of this song may have started the tradition of the Spanish lady who appears in other playground rhymes. A bowdlerised version of the first song has, of course, been sung in hundreds of schools since it was first published in 1908.[2]
The two songs have a common basis, no doubt, and have the lines, "Who she is I do not know/ I'll go and court her for her beauty," in common, as well as the theme of winning over a lady with words. The rhythmic structure is also the same.
It is the second version, however, which began the tradition as a singing game. In Newell's American version from the 1880s3 "I'll go and court her" has become, "I have caught her", and "a handsome man" has changed to "a nice young man". She has wanted "a nice young man", ever since:
There she stands, a lovely creature,
Who she is I do not know.
I have caught her for her beauty,
Let her answer yes or no.
"Madam, I have gold and silver,
Lady, I have houses and lands;
Lady, I have ships on the ocean,
All I have is at thy command.''
''What care I for your gold and silver,
What care I for your houses and lands,
What care I for your ships on the ocean,
All I want is a nice young man.''
Turner[4] quotes from The Bulletin of Sydney (12.3.98). Here the second verse is in the third person:
Here stands a lovely creature,
Who she is I do not know.
Will she answer for her Beauty,
Will she answer Yes or No.
No, she won't have gold and silver
No, she won't have house or land
No, she won't have ships on the ocean.
All she wants is a nice young man.
In all the versions given by Alice Gomme[5] in 1894, the lady wants the gold and silver from the start, as well as "the nice young man". The element of choosing love rather than wealth has gone, apparently for good, though a Cardiff correspondent sent me a version c19266 : "She is decked in gold and silver", so apparently did not requue any more.
The rejection of wealth for love, and love alone, seems to be a rather adult attitude, and therefore it is not surprising that children took a more practical approach, and usually their lady chose both. A typical version of Gomme[7] went:
There stands a lady on a mountain,
Who she is I do not know.
All she wants is gold and silver
All she wants is a nice young man.
Apart from the first line this has remained constant for a hundred years. This and other similar versions accompanied a ring game in which a child was in the centre. This one chose someone from the ring and they kissed at a certain point in the song. The first child rejoined the ring and the game continued. The second, third and fourth lines remained the same, but there are variations in the opening lines:
There stands a lady on the mountain ...
Here stands a lady on the mountain ...
Stands a lady on the mountain.
Gomme gives two versions of another tradition, accompanying a very different game, and which had a very different accompanying verse. They began:
Yonder stands a lovely lady . . .
There stands a lady on yonder hill. . .
They seem to represent a tradition stemming from the original song as they go on:
"Whom she be I do not know (Who she is I cannot tell)
I'll go court her for my beauty (I'll go and court her for her beauty)
I Whether she say me yea or nay (Whether she answers me yes or no).''
This is a purer version. Gomme distinguished them by calling the first game: "Lady on the Mountain" and the second one: "Lady on Yonder Hill." I can trace no descendants of that tradition so I confine myself to the lady who wants "gold and silver" and "a nice young man". In this tradition the opening quatrain was followed by verses taken from other singing games dealing with courtship, all of which are extensively covered in Gomme's great book. One found in versions of ''Three Dukes'' was (typically):
Choose one, choose two, choose the fairest one of the two,
The fairest one that I can see
Is pretty (girl's name) walk with me.
Another, with the idea of turning, or choosing, first east and then west, is found in the games entitled "King William", "Sally Water," "Here Stands a Young Man," and ''Tug of War.''
Choose you east and choose you west,
Choose you the one as you love best.
This combination is also found in Gillington's "Old Hampshire Singing Games[8]." Another Gillington game includes the lines:
Take her by the lily-white hand;
Lead her across the water;
Give her kisses one, two, three,
For she is her mother's daughter.
Similar lines occur in Gomme's "Rosy Apple, Lemon and Pear[9]." In a more modern collection from Edinburgh[10] they are: "Give her a kiss, one, two, three." Gomme[11] quotes from Lady C. Gurdon's version in Suffolk County Folklore (no date given):
Now you're married you must be good;
Make your husband chop the wood;
Chop it fine and bring it in;
Give three kisses in the ring.
Two lines of this verse are found in "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow." Gillington[12], Douglas[13], and Daiken[14], include verses which appear to be derived from "The Keys of Heaven." Thus Douglas:
Madam will you walk it? Madam will you talk it?
Madam will you marry me? No.
Not if I buy you a silver spoon
To feed your baby every afternoon . . .
This variant goes on interestingly with:
Go to church love,
Go to church love,
Farewell.
What's for supper love?
What's for supper love?
Farewell . . .
These lines belong to yet another singing game known as "Isabella".
Almost all versions of "Lady on the Mountain" published since World War Two, and in all those I have come across, the rhyme begins: "On a Mountain Stands a Lady", as Botkin (U.S.A. 1944)[15], Ritchie (Edinburgh 1965) [16], Turner (Australia, 1972, with recorded versions of 1957, 1963 and 1967), [17] Stepney (1964), [18] Marylebone (1967),[19] Shaw (Liverpool 1970) [20] Fowke (Canada, 1969, with a 1954 version),[21] Rutherford (Durham 1971), [22] Walworth (1974)[23] and 1979)[24]. I have been told however of a version in 1974 commencing: "There's a Lady on the Mountain", which had admixtures of "Babylon" and "Isabella". Two printed versions vary also: Evans (San Francisco, 1954 [25] with "On the hillside stands a lady", and Abrahams (U.S.A., 1969)[26] with "On the mountain top stands a lady".
I have been informed by Iona Opie[27], that of fifty five versions collected over twenty five years, only three diverged from the standard opening. They were: "There's a lady on a mountain" (Wereham, Norfolk 1975 ); "On the hill there stands a lady" (Brightlingsea, Essex 1960); and "High on the mountain stands a lady" (Forfar 1952).
These variants, as all the versions I have come across in London, are now used for skipping, but I have been informed that the singing game flourished in the early '60s in several parts of the British Isles, including Wales and the Channel Isles. 28
Many of the more recent variants include verses that belong to the mechanics of skipping, and the link with courtship verses has been lost:
So call in my (girl's name) dear, .... dear, .... dear,
So call in my .... dear .... dear.
(Ritchie[29], Turner[30], Fowke[31], Shaw[32], Marylebone[33], Reading[34])
or:
Come in .... dear .... dear .. .. dear (Romford )[35]
or:
Jump in the pretty little girl (Evans)[36]
Another skipping rhyme is often added, but is quite likely to stand on its own:
Drip, drop, dripping (dropping) in the sea,
Please turn the rope for me.
Come, come, come to the fair.
No, no, the fair's not there.
Along (up) came a Chinaman (mermaid) and said to me: "Do you know your ABCs?" A B C D E F G . . . . .
(Sharon's) out, You're out. (Stepney[37] Walworth)[38].
The courtship theme returns in a divinatory form in contemporary London examples, as in this extended form (Walworth)[39]. It is more often come across in a shortened form however:
All right (Sharon) I'll tell your mother,
Kissing (Boy's first and second names) round the corner.
How many kisses did you give him? 5, 10, 15, 20 ....
Do you love him? Yes, no, yes, no ....
Are you going to marry him? Yes, no, yes, no ....
What are you getting married in? Silk, satin, cotton, rags, silk .....
What are you going to live in? House, palace, dustbin, pigsty, house (House, flat, bungalow, bin, house ........ )
How many babies will you have? One, two, three, four ....
What is their colour? Black, white, half caste, black, white .....
At the answer points, the turning becomes faster. The skipper, however, continues, even if she misses, until all the questions have been answered. This form of divination, of course, goes right back to the eighteenth century and probably even earlier[40]. Nowadays these questions and answers are also attached to other beginnings such as:
"Mrs Brown (Old Mother Brown, Mississippi) lives by the seashore",
or:
"Raspberry, gooseberry, apple, jam tart (Blackberry, strawberry, raspberry tart)."
The skipping rhymes added to "On a mountain stands a lady" also include "Lady, lady, touch the ground" and "All the boys in our town". I am sure there are many more. Botkin[41] has a rhyme prefacing "On a mountain":
Happy Hooligan number nine,
Hung his breeches on the line.
When the line began to swing
Happy Hooligan began to swing.
This is a version of:
What's the time? Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
When a copper comes along
Hurry up and put them on. (Stepney[42], and many more)
It is hard to think that the lady on the mountain even survives this kind of company, but she does apparently.
Why have these four lines from the old folksong continued, with only minor variations, for a hundred years, adapting to so many attachments: elegant, nonsensical, divinatory, poetic, mundane and plain vulgar? The courtship theme was there in the beginning and keeps reappearing, even for a skipping routine. That it is not always there, seems to show that the courtship theme is not its sole attraction. It would not have survived into the jet age without its compelling rhythmic basis, ideal for skipping. I question what Turner43 writes however: "In so far as Lady Gomme's old dramatic games with their 'survivals' from still earlier times, live on at all it is as kindergarten games or at children's parties where the play is organised by adults along kindergarten I. '' 1nes ....
This is almost true, but not quite, otherwise why should this folksong fragment, with no apparent adult boosting have survived. Could it be that the poetic image of a shadowy lady, remote on high, with the desire to be courted and won, makes the same kind of appeal to the eleven year old as the old singing games of courtship etc., appealed to her ancestors? Urbanisation, the mass media and the trivialisation of sex have not destroyed this piece of romantic imagery.
The old singing games are passed on to infants, from the printed page, by teachers, with words "frozen" from the last century. A few survive outside the classroom, adapted to the creative process, just as the adapted nursery rhymes co-exist in the playground with the definitive versions in the reprints of the Mother Goose collection. The lady on the mountain seems to have remained rather aloof, in the popular tradition, in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, without any adult intervention, for over a hundred years. Long may she be chanted about and skipped and danced to.
Notes
1. James Reeves, The Idiom of the People, London, 1958, pp.162-4.
2. Cecil Sharp, "O No John", copyright 1908, Novello and Co., London. [The publication date is later]
3. William Wells Newell, Games and Songs of American Children, New York, 1883.
4. Ian Turner, Cinderella Dressed in Yella, New York, 1972.
5. Alice Bertha Gomme, The Traditional Ga1nes of England, Scotland and Ireland, Vol. I, New York, 1894.
6. Mrs Collinge, Cardiff (from memory) circa 1925.
7. Alice Bertha Gomme, Vol. I, op. cit., Vol. II, New York, 1898.
8. Alice E. Gillington, Old Hampshire Singing Games, London, 1909.
9. op.cit.
10. James T.R. Ritchie, Golden City, Edinburgh, 1965.
11. op.cit.
12. op.cit.
13. Norman Douglas, London Street Games, London, 1916.
14. Leslie Daiken, Chtldren 's Games Throughout the Year, London, 1954.
15. B.A. Botkin, A Treasury of American Folklore, New York, 1944.
16. op.cit.
17. op.cit.
18. Ben Jonson Primary School, E.1, 1964, transcribed from tape.
19. Christchurch C. of E. School G.M. and 1.), N.W.1, 1967, transcribed from tape.
20. Frank Shaw, You Know Me Aunt Nelly, London, 1970.
21. Edith Fowke, Sally Go Round the Sun, Toronto, 1969.
22. Frank Rutherford, All the way to Pennywell, University of Durham, 1971.
23. Michael Faraday Junior School, S.E.17, 1974, transcribed from tape.
24. Michael Faraday Junior School, S.E.17, 1979, transcribed from tape.
25. Patricia Evans, jump Rope Rhymes, San Francisco, 1954.
26. Roger D. Abrahams, Jump Rope Rhymes: A Dictionary, Austin, Texas, 1969.
27. Iona Opie, correspondence, October 1981.
28. ibid
29. op.cit.
30. op.cit.
31. op.cit.
32. op.cit.
33. op.cit.
34. Mrs Duff, Reading, 1980.
35. Mrs Hibble, Romford, circa 1945 (from memory).
36. op.cit.
37. op.cit.
38. op.cit (1979).
39. ibid
40. Iona and Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of School children, London, 1959.
41. op.cit.
42. Ben Jonson Primary School, E.l., 1968, transcribed from tape.
43. op.cit.