QUAINT NURSERY RHYMES ORIGINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 69, 22 March 1941, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUAINT NURSERY RHYMES ORIGINS.

(From Hilairc Hyde (13), Vl»w Road. Mount Eden.i Do you know this old Knjjliotf rh.vmc? It -n\>: — " Old mot her needle had but one I've. ,\ ven long tail which she lot fly: Kmmv time she we-nt through a <^;ij> She leftist hit of her tail in a trap."' And the answer, of course, is— a needle mid sewing thread! Then there is the following rhyme.: '• I'urple. yellow and green. The king cannot reach, nor vet the (|iieen. Nor can Old Noll, w ho»e power so great : Tell inc. tli i riddle while I count eight !'' And (lie (iiwftiT is: "A rainbow." This iln nie il.it i - hack to very early days when Old Noll was J.old Protector. Niu-cry rhymes sometimes hate very inicrc>tiiiu origins. For instance., "Little Hoy Hlne" was supposed to refer to the hutchcr Imy. tvhol u*cd t<J wear blue -mocks; while the lines, "Uain, rain. g< a way. come again another day." seems in have, sprung from these lines: "Sun, this I do that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the black clouds of the sky." "The Ojebtvay Indians believed in the mortality of the sun, and when an eclipse took place the entire tribe, kept up an unceasing discharge of fire-tipped arrow.- until they saw the sun again. Then, it' it still continued to be wet ami cloudy weather, the. chief of the New i aledoniaiis climbed the highest peak of ;> mountain range, fired a special eacriliec. invoked his ancestors and repeated I lie above lines.