There Stands a Lady- children (Rutland) c.1896 Lucy Finch
[From "Children's Singing-Games"published in the Monthly Packet edited by Colreidge and Innes (London)- page 345, 1897 dated circa May 1896 from a paper compiled by Lucy Finch on the games played at Wing, Rutlandshire. Reprinted in Hinkson's "Victorian Singing Games" (1991) p.37.
R. Matrteson 2017]
CHILDREN'S SINGING-GAMES.
LUCY Fitch sends an excellent paper on the games as played at Wing, Rutlandshire. She gives nearly all the old favourites: 'Sally Saucer' (she was 'Sally Waters' in Ireland),'Nuts in May,' 'The Bells of St . Clements,' 'Jinny Jones,' and many others, mostly varying from the forms sent in from other places. Here is an entirely new one:
There stands a lady on the mountains,
Who she is I do not know;
All she wants is gold and silver,
All she wants is a nice young man.
Now I am forsaken,
Fifty years ago I knew you,
Give me a kiss and go.
This reads like a fragment of an old ballad.
THE OLD FISHWIFE.
Here's an old Fishwife left all alone,
Nothing to do but mind her own.
Come, choose to the East,
Choose to the West,
Choose to the one that you love best.
Here's a couple got married with joy,
First a girl, and then a boy.
Seven years after, seven years ago,
Now is the time to kiss and to go.
This is a choosing game out of Northumbria.