No. 2 Three Kings
This antique rhyme, which comes to us from West Virginia, is a rude and remarkable variety of the preceding game, but quite unlike any English version hitherto printed.
We find a singular and apparently connected equivalent in the Färöe isles. In the form of the dialogue there in use, as in the present game, the suitor is presented in successively higher characters, as a thrall, smith, and so on, until he is finally accepted as a prince. The Italian song has shown us a similar usage. Thus the surf-beaten rocks of the North Atlantic, with their scanty population of fishermen and shepherds, whose tongue is a dialect of the ancient Norse speech, are linked by the golden chain (or network) of tradition with the fertile vales of the Alleghenies, and the historic lagoons of Venice.
The corrupt ending, too, compared with the Philadelphia version already cited, and with the Venetian game, is seen to rest on an ancient basis. The children, having forgotten the happy close, and not understanding the haggling of the suitors, took the “three kings” for bandits.
On one side of the room a mother with her daughters. On the other three wooers, who advance.
“Here come three soldiers three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging, can we have a lodging,
Can we have a lodging here to-night?”
“Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three soldiers, and they sha’n’t take;
They sha’n’t have a lodging, they sha’n’t have a lodging,
They sha’n’t have a lodging here to-night.”
“Here come three sailors three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging,” etc.
“Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three sailors and they sha’n’t take;
They sha’n’t have a lodging,” etc.
“Here come three tinkers three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging,” etc.
“Sleep, my daughter, do not wake—
Here come three tinkers and they sha’n’t take;
They sha’n’t have a lodging,” etc.
“Here come three kings, three by three,
To court your daughter merrily;
Can we have a lodging,” etc.
“Wake, my daughter, do not sleep—
Here come three kings, and they shall take;
They shall have a lodging, they shall have a lodging,
They shall have a lodging here to-night.”
(To the kings)—
“Here is my daughter safe and sound,
And in her pocket five hundred pound,
And on her finger a plain gold ring,
And she is fit to walk with the king.”
(The daughter goes with the kings; but they are villains in disguise: they rob her, push her back to her mother, and sing)—
“Here is your daughter not safe and sound,
And in her pocket not five hundred pound,
And on her finger no plain gold ring,
And she’s not fit to walk with the king.”
(The mother pursues the kings, and tries to catch and beat them).
Charlestown, W. Va.