Childhood Counting-Out Games and Rhymes

         

Credit: Amazon.com

This may be the most unusual post I have ever done, or ever will do. It started quite innocently – with trying to recall some things from the past; specifically in this case, some of the “old sayings” I heard from my father’s family. Then it grew into a three-day-long obsession in a quest to learn what I could about the following words that my father, and others in his family, used to say:

“One sort, two sort, little zigga zan

Bobtail dominicker little toy tan

Virgil, Mary, Hailum, Skaylum,

Ringum, rangum, zilem, zolum

Jingum, jangum, bilum, bolum, BUCK”

What the heck did it mean? I remember when I was a child asking just that and the answer was always, “it’s just an old saying; just foolishness.”

I don't ever recall that I myself ever repeated that old line; thought it was rather silly.

Looking at it now, it's strange with its made up words. Was it based on anything or just something completely made up?

Through the wonder of the WorldWide Web, I simply entered “bobtail dominicker,” which shone a bright light on this saying and many others. “The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children,” a 1888 book by Henry Carrington Bolton, was the first entry that popped up containing the mysterious "bobtail dominicker" words.

It is beyond the scope of this blog to tell you all about the book, other than to say it is a scholarly volume detailing counting-out rhymes from all over the world. A branch of oral folklore, they consist of a jingle of words with swing and rhyme that have little or no meaning. (Well thank goodness!)

They are used (or at least were in past days) to find out who is to begin any game that children engage in. They have many regional permutations and the ones from England, Wales and Scotland are the ones the jingles I heard seem to be based on. This, of course, makes perfect sense, since the early settlers of the U.S. in this region were primarily of Scot-Irish descent. Over generations, words were changed to suit the locale or preference or the speaker. For instance, in the example above, the original version, the third line was "Virgin Mary," and changed by Protestants to "Virgil, Mary."

The little jingles I heard in my family were not used by us in our play (we had our own; more on that later). They were simply something our parents and grandparents had used as children and repeated to amuse and entertain us.

In addition to the one mentioned above, my memory was jogged when I found others as I read through this detailed book. Below are others I often heard:

"Ziggity Zaggety hornet’s cuff

How many fingers have I got up?"

and 

"Wire, briar, lumber lock

Three geese in a flock

One flew east, one flew west

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest."

And this one: 

Ink, stink, stilum stew

Nobody stinks but barely you.

(In the version reported by Bolton, “out” was used instead of “stinks)

Sorry this is not a very clear copy of the Bolton book but is the only one I could find. Credit: Google books

The thing that strikes me now is, "have these counting-out games for children completely died out?" Since I don’t myself ever recall repeating any of the ones above, am I to assume that after my father’s generation they are no longer a part of oral folklore? I must ask my cousins if any of them have a recall of these? What about in the more secluded regions, especially in Appalachia where traditions cling? Something to learn more about. 

Television was in its early days in the 1950s. Agrarian society was being transformed into an industrial way of life; modern times were upon us; adults spent less time with their children, talking to them, telling them the old stories. Children were sent out to play while parents struggled to keep up with the house duties; there was less time for visiting on front porches; grandma or grandpa, the source for many of the stories of old,  no longer lived with their adult children in their declining years but were sent off to the nursing home.  

And that doesn't even touch on an explanation of the dying out of old traditions/sayings/stories of today. Text-messaging, e-mail, video games, Internet, extra-curriculum activities have all segmented children from their elders. Depressing in my opinion.

But in my day, we did have our own counting out games (although I didn't know they were called that). A few of them were:

One potato, two potato,

Three potato, four

Five potato, six potato,

Seven potato, more.

Enny, meny, minny mo

Catch a monkey by the toe

If he hollers make him pay

Fifteen dollars every day

You old dirty dishrag out goes YOU.

One for the money

Two for the show

Three to get ready

Four to go.

The following are not counting-out rhymes, but little games we played. Do children say these things and play these games anymore?

Ring around the roses

Pocket full of posies

Upstairs, downstairs, squat!

London Bridge is falling down, falling down

London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

Pease parge (porridge) hot

Pease parge cold

Pease parge in the pot nine days old

Some like it hot

Some like it cold

Some like it in the days nine days old.

Lucy Lockett lost her pocket

And don’t know where to find it

Katy Fisher found it

Not a penny was there in it.

Mary Mac
Dressed in black
Silver buttons up and down her back.

Oh, then there's this little song:

Short'nin' Bread

Put on the pot, then we'll be fed,
Mama's gonna make a little short'nin' bread.
That ain't all she's gonna do,
Mama's gonna make a little coffee, too.

Mama's little baby loves short'nin', short'nin',
Mama's little baby loves short'nin' bread,
Mama's little baby loves short'nin', short'nin',
Mama's little baby loves short'nin' bread.

Thank you for reading this far of this very long post and thereby indulging me to discuss this topic. I hope you haven't found it too boring. But I would very much like your thoughts on any of the above discussion.

Specifically, I'd be interested to know if you've heard of any of the counting-out rhymes. Did you say them? Did you teach any of them to your children/grandchildren? If you have have young children/grandchildren, do they have counting-out rhymes, and if so, what are they? I am totally out of touch on current trends so please educate me!