XV Mythology
In the olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour,
Of which that Britouns speken gret honour,
Al was this land fulfilled of fayrye.
The Wife of Baths Tale.
No. 150 London Bridge
No game has been more popular with children than this, and any summer evening, in the poorer quarters of the cities, it may still be seen how six years instructs three years in the proper way of conducting it. Two players, by their uplifted hands, form an arch, representing the bridge, under which passes the train of children, each clinging to the garments of the predecessor, and hurrying to get safely by. The last of the train is caught by the lowered arms of the guardians of the bridge, and asked, “Will you have a diamond necklace or a gold pin?” “a rose or a cabbage?” or some equivalent question. The keepers have already privately agreed which of the two each of these objects shall represent, and, according to the prisoner’s choice, he is placed behind one or the other. When all are caught, the game ends with a “Tug of War,” the two sides pulling against each other; and the child who lets go, and breaks the line, is pointed at and derided. The words of the rhyme sung while the row passes under the bridge are now reduced to two lines,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady!
Readers may wonder why this well-known game should be classed as mythological; but such a character appears in the European versions. Thus, in Suabia, the two keepers of the “Golden Bridge” are called respectively the “Devil” and the “Angel,” and the object is to decide who shall be devils and who angels. In France the game is known as “Heaven and Hell.” The children who have made a good choice, after the selection is finished, pursue the devils, making the sign of horns with fingers extended from the forehead. In Italy, the name of the sport is “Open the Gates.” The gates are those of the Inferno and of Paradise; St. Peter is the keeper of one, St. Paul of the other. The children choose between wine and water; but when the destiny of the last child is decided, the two girls who represent the keepers of the bridge break their arch of lifted hands and move in different directions, followed by their subjects, “while the cries and shrieks of the players condemned to the Inferno contrast with the pathetic songs and sweet cadences of those destined to the happiness of Paradise.”
The game is mentioned by Rabelais (about A.D. 1533) under the name of the “Fallen Bridge.”
In German versions, the keepers are called “Devil and Angel,” “King and Emperor,” or “Sun and Moon.” In this latter form the game has been one of the few kept up by the Germans of Pennsylvania, who call it the “Bridge of Holland.”127
Connected with this game in Massachusetts is a curious piece of local lore. A lady128 recollects that, in the first years of the century, a pedler came to her father’s house in Plymouth, Mass., and, in default of three cents change, left a “chap-book” or pamphlet of that value, called “Mother Goose’s Melodies.” In this pamphlet (the first authentic mention of a publication of that title) the song was included, in the familiar words; but, instead of London bridge, Charlestown bridge was substituted in the rhyme. In that form only the verses were familiar to herself and her companions.
Charlestown Bridge, over Charles River, connected Boston with Cambridge and other suburban towns, before that time only accessible by ferry or a long detour. The bridge was “dedicated” July 17, 1786; and was, in the eyes of the rustic population of Massachusetts, quite as important a structure as the London erection of the thirteenth century. The project was undertaken after a long incubation of sixty years, and not without many apprehensions lest the vast masses of ice rushing down the river in winter should sweep it away. The cost was fifteen thousand pounds. At the celebration, a salute of thirteen guns was fired from Fort Hill, “almost every person of respectable character in private and public life walked in the procession,” and eight hundred persons sat down to dinner. No wonder that its fame superseded, locally at least, that of the celebrated structure which was so long the wonder of London, and so sacred in nursery lore. We may thus form an idea of the importance of bridges in earlier times—which importance, and the superstitions consequent, were the root of our game—and also of the tendency of each town to localize its traditions, even those of the nursery.
With the exception of the name, the words of the song, in the chap-book referred to, were identical with those of the familiar English version. We learn from another informant that these same words (this time, however, under the proper title of London Bridge) were often used as a dance-song at children’s parties about the beginning of the century. The dancers sat in a circle, a boy next a girl; as each verse was sung, the lad whose turn it was led out his partner and promenaded, suiting action to meaning. The exact verbal correspondence, and absence of the original mode of playing, show that this version of the song, and consequently the rhymes of the pamphlet called “Mother Goose’s Melodies,” were not taken from the lips of Americans, but reprinted from English sources.
The version repeatedly printed in books for children is not truly popular. It has been remodelled by the recorder, and so the original idea has been disguised. We have, however, the pleasure of offering a genuine English version. We add fragments of American forms, and finally a curious text, for which Ireland is ultimately responsible. From these, taken together, the character of the old English game can be made out.
A.—Song of Charlestown Bridge, as printed (probably about 1786) in the chap-book, “Mother Goose’s Melodies:”
Charlestown Bridge is broken down,
Dance o’er my lady Lee;
Charlestown Bridge is broken down,
With a gay lady.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Build it up with silver and gold,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Silver and gold will be stole away,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Build it up with iron and steel,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Build it up with wood and clay,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Dance o’er my lady Lee, etc.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance o’er my lady Lee,
Huzza! ’twill last for ages long,
With a gay lady.
B.—
London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my lady Lee;
London Bridge is broken down,
With the gay lady.
How shall we mend it up again?
Dance over my lady Lee;
How shall we mend it up again
For the gay lady?
We will mend it up with gravel and sand,
Dance over my lady Lee;
We will mend it up with gravel and sand
For the gay lady.
But gravel and sand will wash away,
Dance over my lady Lee;
Gravel and sand will wash away
From the gay lady.
We will mend it up with iron and steel,
Dance over my lady Lee;
We will mend it up with iron and steel
For the gay lady.
But iron and steel will bend and break,
Dance over my lady Lee;
Iron and steel will bend and break,
With the gay lady.
We will mend it up with silver and gold,
Dance over my lady Lee;
We will mend it up with silver and gold
For the gay lady.
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Dance over my lady Lee;
Silver and gold will be stolen away
From the gay lady.
We will put a man to watch all night,
Dance over my lady Lee;
We will put a man to watch all night
For the gay lady.
Suppose the man should fall asleep?
Dance over my lady Lee;
Suppose the man should fall asleep?
My gay lady!
We will put a pipe into his mouth,
Dance over my lady Lee;
We will put a pipe into his mouth,
For the gay lady.129
C.—
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady!
You’ve stole my watch and kept my keys,
My fair lady!
Off to prison she must go,
My fair lady!
Take the key and lock her up,
My fair lady!130
—Boston, Mass.
D.—
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady!
What did the robber do to you?
My fair lady!
He broke my watch and stole my keys,
My fair lady!
Then off to prison he must go,
My fair lady!
—Savannah, Ga.
E.—Our last version is from the convent-school of Savannah, and, although recited by a girl of American birth, is of Irish origin:
London Bridge is falling down, etc.
My fair lady!
How shall we build it up again?—
Build it up with lime and stone.—
Stone and lime would wash away.—
Build it up with iron bars.—
Iron bars would bend and break.—
Build it up with gold and silver.—
Gold and silver would be stole away.—
Get a watch to watch all night.—
Suppose the watch should fall asleep?—
Get him a pipe to smoke all night.—
Suppose the pipe should fall and break?—
Get a dog to bark all night.—
Suppose the dog should get a bone?—
Get a cock to crow all night.—
Suppose the cock should fly away?—
What has this poor prisoner done?—
He’s broke my box and stole my keys.—
A hundred pounds will set him free.—
A hundred pounds he has not got.—
Off to prison he must go,
My fair lady!131
As to the origin of this remarkable game, our citations have already made clear that one of its features consists in a representation of the antagonism of celestial and infernal powers, and the final decision by which each soul is assigned a place on the one side or the other. It was universally believed in the Middle Ages, that the soul, separated from the body, had to cross a dangerous bridge, and subsequently undergo a literal weighing in the balance, according to the result of which its destiny was decided. It is in the nature of things that children, conversant with these ideas, should have dramatized them in their sports. We see no reason, with the German writers, to go back to ancient Northern mythology; nor do we find any ground for believing that our game is more likely to be of Teutonic than Romance descent.
We suspect, however, that that part of the sport which relates to the warfare of good and evil powers does not belong to the original idea, but that a still more primitive game has taken on an ending which was common to many amusements in the Middle Ages. The central point of the whole is the repeated downfall of the structure. Now there is a distinct mythologic reason for such a representation. In early times no edifice was so important as a bridge, which renders intercourse possible between districts heretofore separated. Hence the sanctity attributed in mediæval times to the architects of bridges. The Devil, or (in more ancient guise) the elemental spirit of the land, who detests any interference with the solitude he loves, has an especial antipathy to bridges. His repeated and successful attempts to interfere with such a structure, until he is bought off with an offering like that of Iphigenia, are recorded in legends which attach to numerous bridges in Europe. It is on such supernatural opposition that the English form of the game appears to turn. The structure, which is erected in the daytime, is ruined at night; every form of material—wood, stone, and gold—is tried in vain; the vigilance of the watchman, or of the cock and the dog—guardian animals of the darkness—is insufficient to protect the edifice from the attack of the offended spirits.
The child arrested seems to be originally regarded as the price paid for allowing the structure to stand. In times when all men’s thoughts were concerned about the final judgment, a different turn was given to the sport—namely, whether the prisoner should belong to the devils or to the angels, who wage perpetual warfare, and dispute with each other the possession of departed souls. Finally, in quite recent days, religious allusions were excluded, and the captive, now accused of mere theft, was sentenced to be locked up, not in the Inferno, but in a commonplace jail.