No. 160 The Sleeping Beauty
About fifty years since, in a town of Massachusetts (Wrentham), the young people were in the habit of playing an exceedingly rustic kissing-game. A girl in the centre of the ring simulated sleep, and the words were—
There was a young lady sat down to sleep;
She wants a young gentleman to wake her up;
Mr. —— —— shall be his name.
The awakening was then effected by a kiss.
The same game comes to us as a negro sport from Galveston, Texas, but in a form which shows it to be the corruption of an old English round:
Here we go round the strawberry bush,
This cold and frosty morning.
Here’s a young lady sat down to sleep,
This cold and frosty morning.
She wants a young gentleman to wake her up,
This cold and frosty morning.
Write his name and send it by me,
This cold and frosty morning.
Mr. —— his name is called,
This cold and frosty morning.
Arise, arise, upon your feet,
This cold and frosty morning.
Some unintelligible negro rhymes follow.
The refrain of the last version indicates that it is of old English origin, and was used as a May-game.
It would appear, from the character of the round, that various names are proposed to the sleeping girl, which she rejects until a satisfactory one is presented. At all events, this is the case in a Provençal game which we take to be of the same origin as ours. In this game it is explained that the girl is not asleep, but counterfeiting death. “Alas! what shall we give our sister? N. N. to be her husband.”
A favorite French round describes the maiden as asleep “in the tower.” The pretty song represents her as awakened by the rose her lover has left upon her breast. Though there is no very close resemblance between this and the Provençal game, the same idea of deliverance from enchantment appears to underlie both.
We infer, therefore, that the game, apparently so natural an invention, originally represented some form of the world-wide story of the “Sleeping Beauty.” If this be so, to explain its history would lead us to write of Northern lay and mediæval legend; we should have to examine the natural symbolism of primitive religions, and the loves of ancient gods. The kissing-romp of a New England village would be connected with the poetry and romance of half the world.
In any case, this interlinking of the New World with all countries and ages, by the golden network of oral tradition, may supply the moral of our collection.
Footnotes
127 Die Holländisch’ Brück’.
128 Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord, Mass.
129 From Prof. G. J. Webb, now of New York, who learned it from his mother, in the Isle of Wight, his birthplace.
130 As the last verse is sung, the raised arms of the two directors of the game descend, and enclose the child who happens to be passing at the time. The prisoner is then led, still confined by the arms of her captors, to the corner which represents the prison. After this she must choose as described on page 204, and the two sides finally pull against each other. Our informant well remembers how seriously the matter was taken, and how disturbed and disgraced she felt when arrested and imprisoned.
131 We have obtained a nearly identical, but more fragmentary version from Waterford, Ireland, with a refrain that seems a corruption of that belonging to the ordinary English song; thus—
London Bridge is broken down,
Fair lady!
How shall we build it up again?
Grand says the little dear.
We have also, from an Irish domestic, a most curious account of the use of the latter version in the town named. Agreeing, as it does, in essential respects with the character which the European game now possesses, and which the English game once evidently possessed, we do not doubt its general correctness; but we have had no opportunity to verify the statement of the somewhat inconsequent informant.
An actual bridge was built up with sticks and boards, and surrounded by the ring of players, dressed in costume; without stood the Devil. Little girls in variously colored dresses represented the angels.
The repeated fall and rebuilding of the bridge was acted out, as described in the verses of the song; this fall was ascribed to the malice of the Devil, who ruined it during the night (watching it, said the narrator, from the top of an ash-tree during the day).
The imprisonment of the child enclosed by the arms of the leaders was acted out as described in the note on page 208, but in a noteworthy fashion. A chain was taken, and wrapped round the child, in the form of a serpent (for the Devil is a serpent, said the reciter); the captive was taken to a hut (representing apparently the entrance to the Inferno) built by the sea. Meantime, the rest of the train called on their leader for help; but he answered, “the Devil has five feet, and thirteen eyes, and is stronger than I!” The performance lasted five hours; and the name of the edifice was the Devil’s Bridge.
In this Irish game, tests were employed to determine whether the captive should belong to the Devil or not. One of these was the ability to walk on a straight line drawn on the ground.
On the windows of French mediæval churches devils may be seen surrounding the condemned with a great chain, which they use to drag them into their clutches.
132 Or, his wife.
133 À l’épayelle (that is, in the basket)
Tout du long de ciel,
Tout du long du paradis,
Saut’! Saut’! Saut souris!
134 See No. 154, E, and note.
135 Game of New York German children: “Wer ist daraus?” “Der Engel mit dem goldenen Strauss.” “Was will er?” “Eine Farbe.” “Was für eine?” “Blau,” etc. Then “Der Engel mit dem Feuerhaken” comes forward, and so on, “bis alle Farben fort sind.”
136 An imitation of knocking. Italian, Din-din; French, pan! pan! etc.
137 The dialogue is: “Pan! pan!” “Qui est-ce qui est la?” “C’est le diable avec sa fourche.” “Que veut-il?” “Un animal.” “Entrez.”
138 A line and a half are wanting.
139 “I charge my daughters every one,
To keep good house while I am gone.
You and you [points] but specially Sue,
Or else I’ll beat you black and blue.”
From “Nursery Rhymes of England,” where it is said to be a game of the Gypsy, who “during the mother’s absence comes in, entices a child away, and hides her. This process is repeated till all the children are hidden, when the mother has to find them.”
140 This verse is borrowed from another game, No. 102. The drama opens with a foreboding. The prophetic soul of the mother uses the lament of a hen who has lost one of her brood.
141 Or any elevated position. Also, in heaven.
142 This Urschel is a mythologic character. When the children of Pfüllingen climb the Urschelberg, where she lives, each child deposits on a certain stone two or three horn buttons as an offering. On returning, they observe whether she has not taken them away; and, even if the buttons remain, they are sure that she has taken pleasure in them. When they pass a certain slope they roll down perforated stones (called “suns”), and the child whose “sun” rolls farthest says with pride, “Urschel liked my present best.”
Urschel passes for an enchanted maiden, whose original name was Prisca. Every four centuries she plants a beech-tree for the cradle of the youth whose love is at last to release her. The chosen shepherd sees her sitting by the road-side, in the shape of an old woman, dressed in green gown and red stockings. But none has ever dared to wed her for the sake of the castle and treasure she offers.
143 “Le Diable Boîteux.”
144 “An Ogree is a giant with long teeth and claws, with a Raw Head and Bloody Bones, and runs away with naughty boys and girls, and eats them all up.”—Story of the “Sleeping Beauty,” as given in an old chap-book.
145 Où est la belle Marguerite,
Ogier, beau chevalier?