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NLA News - home February 2003 Volume XIII Number 5
Prins Jovis Was a Gentleman: Multicultural Folklore for Children
Children playing games under supervision at the Child Minding Centre at Graylands Migrant Hostel, Perth, Western Australia (detail). Australian Information Service

Children playing games under supervision at the Child Minding Centre
at Graylands Migrant Hostel, Perth, Western Australia (detail)
Australian Information Service
Pictures Collection

 

Gwenda Beed Davey surveys sound recordings of folklore for and by children held at the National Library of Australia

Prins Joris was a gentleman
A gentleman was he;
He had a coat with currants on
And pants of rice pudding.

In 2002, I completed a survey of children’s folklore recordings held in the Oral History and Folklore Section of the National Library. I was delighted to find that many of the Library’s leading field collectors had included some children’s folklore among their recordings, which are held in the Australian Children’s Folklore Collection (TRC 2632). 

Children’s folklore is one of the most ancient of continuous traditions. Stories for children, such as The Emperor’s New Clothes, were written down in the fourteenth century and the famous painting Children’s Games, produced by Pieter Brueghel in 1560, portrays more than 80 games still played by children today. Children’s lore is, however, not only significant for its antiquity but also because of the important role which it plays in children’s social and intellectual development.

It is of particular interest that the National Library of Australia’s collection of sound recordings of children’s folklore contains a strong multicultural component. The Dutch rhyme about Prins Joris, printed above, is one of many in more than 20 languages held in the Library’s Oral History and Folklore Section. It is also one of many nonsense rhymes, found in various languages, in which reality is turned upside down. The cow who jumped over the moon in the English rhyme, ‘Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle’ has many companions, such as a mouse in a monastery (Greek), sardines in the mountains (Spanish) and a house with no roof (Italian). This Serbian rhyme is called ‘The Fisherman’:

Snug as a Bug!: Scenes from Family Life, collected by Gwenda Beed Davey; illustrated by Peter Viska (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990)

Snug as a Bug!: Scenes from Family Life, collected by Gwenda Beed Davey; illustrated by Peter Viska (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990)

The fisherman put a net in the sea
And next day found seven pheasants in it.
The next time he put out a line
He hooked a rabbit!
When he fished out in the deep sea
He found sausages and a bottle of wine!
And nobody in the town could work it all out!

There is no doubt that the main reason why adults use nonsense rhymes with young children is for entertainment, but both parents and early childhood specialists are well aware that nursery rhymes serve other functions as well. Nonsense rhymes help children’s ability to classify concepts (what is real and what is not), and children’s first lessons in counting may be through rhymes such as:

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let him go again.
     

Physical and emotional bonding are enhanced by body games such as ‘This Little Pig Went to Market’, ‘This is the Way the Ladies Ride’, and by charming rhymes such as the Italian ‘Signorina Patatina:’

Pre-School Play Centre provided for children of staff members by Zinc Corp., 1949

Pre-School Play Centre provided for children of staff members by Zinc Corp., 1949
Pictures Collection

 

Signorina Patatina,
Little Miss Potato,

Con le gambe di gallina, 
With your chicken legs
Con la vesta di veluto, 
And your velvet dress;
Signorina, ti saluto! 
Little Miss, hello!

In an era when cultural differences between people of varied ethnic backgrounds may be a source of bitter dissension, it is a cause for joy to discover that there are many cultural similarities too, including the songs, rhymes and games which adults use with very young children. One aspect of multicultural similarities in folklore for children which has interested me for some time involves the enigmatic sayings which adults use, usually humorously, to put curious children in their place. A child’s query ‘How old are you, Grandma?’ may be answered in English with ‘As old as my tongue and as young as my teeth’ and in Italian as ‘Thirty years per leg’. The perennial question ‘What’s for dinner?’ may be answered by a Greek mother with ‘My liver and kidneys’, or by an English-speaker with ‘Bread and scrape’, or ‘Bread and pullet’. Most families have their favourites, such as the mysterious response to the question ‘What are you making, Dad?’—‘a wigwam for a goose’s bridle’.

Although the earliest sound recordings held by the National Library were made in the 1950s by pioneers such as Hazel de Berg and John Meredith, there are only a few recordings of any kind in languages other than English made before the 1970s. There are two exceptions: one is from the important O’Connor Collection, recorded in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly in Victoria. This collection includes a number of items of children’s folklore, including songs and lullabies from Africa, Israel, the United States and Yemen. The other exception is Catherine Ellis’s 1962 recording of Aboriginal women at Ooldea (South Australia) singing songs, including a lullaby. There are of course many recordings made with Aboriginal people in the National Library’s collections, but recordings of traditional lore for children are rare.

During the 1970s, the word ‘multicultural’ was first used extensively in public discourse, and real interest began in the cultural treasures brought to Australia by immigrants of many different ethnic origins. Peter Parkhill was one of the first to make field recordings of immigrant musicians, beginning in the 1970s, and his collection, held in the National Library, includes items for children and performances by children. Parkhill’s recordings include musicians from Anatolia (Turkey), Cambodia, Crete, Czechoslovakia, East Timor and Macedonia, all playing for child singers and dancers.

Some of the traditional Turkish songs recorded by Peter Parkhill, such as ‘The Red Handkerchief’, are also categorised as children’s folklore. It is interesting that love songs in many languages, such as the English ‘Lavender Blue’, are frequently sung by adults to children, and I have found that the old song ‘Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do’ has passed through oral tradition into the nursery rhyme repertoire. The following translation of the Turkish folk song ‘Mendil’ (‘The Red Handkerchief’), is from one of Peter Parkhill’s recordings.

Children of various nationalities playing together in front of the stage of Glebe Park, Civic, Canberra, as part of the Multicultural Festival

Children of various nationalities playing together in front of the stage of Glebe Park, Civic, Canberra, as part of the Multicultural Festival
Pictures Collection

 

Go to the mountains and get some snow;
The wood smells wet, bring it in a golden bowl.
Break a golden nut in the golden bowl
And bring me the red handkerchief.
I should have not broken the nut,
I should not have broken my lover’s heart.

A more recent project, the Greek–Australian Oral History and Folklore Project, was carried out in Melbourne between 1997 and 1999 (TRC 3607). Interviews were conducted in both Greek and English by Demetra Enzilis, and several different groups of Greek–Australians were interviewed, including Melbourne Rebetika musicians and both State and Federal members of Parliament. Groups of women interviewed included women over 70 years of age, professional women, and women under 30 years. The interviews included discussions on folk beliefs and practices and many interviewees, both men and women, contributed examples of the traditional songs, rhymes and stories which they told to young children, including ‘Moon So Bright’, which is one of the best known of all Greek nursery rhymes. It is often said to refer to the illegal Greek schools which were held at night during the Ottoman domination of Greece. However, like English-language nursery rhymes such as ‘Little Jack Horner’ (sometimes said to refer to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and his allocation of ‘plum’ real estate to his favourites), the ‘political’ origins of nursery rhymes are difficult to establish.

Title page of Jack and Jill: A Book of Nursery Rhymes, compiled by Gwenda Beed Davey; illustrated by Berina Ogden (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992)

Title page of Jack and Jill: A Book of Nursery Rhymes, compiled by Gwenda Beed Davey; illustrated by Berina Ogden (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992)

Moon so bright
Shine at night.
Light my way
To go to school
To work and play
And learn the rule
And God’s good things.

All of the examples given above are folklore used by adults with children. This is folklore for children, one of the two main types of children’s folklore. The more widely recognised type is children’s own playground lore, folklore of children, which has become well known in Australia in recent years through Ian Turner’s 1969 publication Cinderella Dressed in Yella and through June Factor’s compilations such as Far Out, Brussel Sprout! (1983) and her scholarly book Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children’s Folklore in Australia (1989). Australian children’s playground lore is mostly known as English-language lore, and some classic examples are hand-clapping rhymes such as ‘Mary Mack Dressed in Black’, ‘Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear’ or :

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,
To see what he could see, see, see;
But all that he could see, see, see,
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

Some Australian researchers, such as Heather Russell and Kathy Marsh, have looked at non-English lore in school playgrounds and particularly at the influence that this introduced children’s culture has had on the mainstream play repertoire. Some individual school playgrounds have adopted new games or practices, such as the ‘Chinese flick’ in marbles, but most Australian children’s playground lore remains in the Anglo tradition, as are most of the sound recordings of this lore in the National Library’s collections. Even exotic locations like Christmas Island show the dominance of the Anglo pattern!  Mr Choo Wai Chee was born on Christmas Island and lived there for a number of years. In 1987, he recorded his experiences for what has become known as the Christmas Island Collection (TRC 2407). He spoke about his childhood at South Point:

We were called the ‘barbarians’ by the other kids and the teachers because we came in from the jungle. South Point and Camp 4/5 kids were always picked on … At 5 o’clock every kid was in the park which was directly opposite our house. There we played all sorts of games like a kind of ‘rounders’ using rocks for bases, or a game we called ‘boompa’ which is the sound made by the two sticks we hit together instead of a bat and ball … We played lots of different marble games with real marble marbles. Sometimes if we ran out, we would steal them from the chooks’ nests. Mum and Dad used to put dummy marble eggs under the chooks to make them lay more. 

The possibilities of cross-cultural research in children’s folklore have been greatly enhanced in recent times by the Internet, and particularly through the children’s folklore network instigated by Dr Julia Bishop from Sheffield University in England. A recent international discussion (initiated by a folklorist from Norway) concerned the popular playground game of ‘elastics’ and whether it could be identified before the 1950s. Many Australian researchers into childlore believe elastics, sometimes called Chinese skippy or skipping, came to Australia in the 1950s, probably from Southeast Asia.

In addition to children’s folklore, there are many other multicultural sound recordings in the National Library’s collections, such as Barry York’s interviews with Maltese Australians, which hold great interest for scholars. Linguists, for example, are interested in ‘migrant English’ and in the changes taking place in languages from the home country. The National Library’s sound recordings provide a rich body of source material for researchers in linguistics and other disciplines.

GWENDA BEED DAVEY taught child development for many years and was a Harold White Fellow at the National Library in 1988

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