Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Did You Kill Your Mother?
Hold your hand out and turn one finger down every time you answer “no” to a question. 
Start with the finger that’s farthest away from your thumb.
Did you kill your mother? (No)
Did you kill your father? (No)
Did you kill your gramma? (No)
Then what are you doing with a gun in your hand?
Seven-year-old Paul taught me this routine in the spring of 1996 while visit-
ing my introductory folklore class with his mother. After I turned down my little 
finger and the next two fingers, the only digits still extended were the thumb and 
the adjacent finger: children’s traditional representation of a gun. In a culture 
where guns frequently appear on TV, it is not surprising to discover a child’s 
routine that leaves the victim with a gun. Such routines mirror society’s concern 
about violence; they also let the child take the role of a clever detective.
Slap Me Five
Slap me five (high-five clap)
Slap me low (low clap)
Slap me middle (swipe hand toward middle very quickly, then remove it)
You’re too slow
Robert, an Anglo-American sixth-grader in Vestal, New York, shared this routine 
with me in the winter of 1998. The influence of hip-hop culture is clear here. 
Although the routine begins with a friendly high-five, it ends with a putdown 
(Green and Widdowson 363).
RHYMES
Counting-Out Rhymes
Intie, Mintie
Intie, Mintie,
Tibbity Fee, Delia, Delia, Dominee,
Icha, Picha, Dominicha,
Alka, Palka, Poo,
Out pops Y-O-U.

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56 Children’s 
Folklore
Intie, Mintie, Tootsa, Lala,
Falama Linkie, Dinkie, Dala,
Falama Lee, Falama Loo,
Out pops Y-O-U.
Nola Johnson, a student at the University of Maine, recorded both of these 
counting-out rhymes in January 1967. She learned the first rhyme from her 
mother and the second from her father. Both of her parents grew up in a Swedish 
neighborhood of Worcester, Massachusetts. These two counting-out rhymes rep-
resent the many variants of Intie, Mintie that have circulated in the British Isles 
and the United States (Abrahams and Rankin 122–25; Opie and Opie, 
Oxford 
Dictionary 
224; Newell 200).