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

TAUNTS AND COUNTERTAUNTS
The 
Oxford English Dictionary
confirms the longevity of children’s taunts, 
which some folklorists call 
jeers.
Greedy-gut(s)
appeared in print in 1550, 
fatty
in 1797, 
cry-baby
in 1852, and 
tattle-tale
in 1889. Iona and Peter Opie identify 
taunts for children who behave in certain ways: 
spoilsports, sourpusses, fools, copy-
cats, cowards, crybabies, sneaks, bullies,
and others (
Lore and Language
186 –88). 
Such taunts correct what children perceive as inappropriate behavior. Mary and 
Herbert Knapp offer examples of rhyming taunts related to children’s last names, 
such as “Gold, Gold, you eat mold” and “Brown, Brown, you’re a clown” (63).
In the second half of the twentieth century, some of the most common taunts 
of English-speaking children were “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” “Baby, baby, stick 
your head in gravy,” “Pink, pink, you stink,” and various insults from the Afri-
can American “dozens” tradition, such as “Your mama’s a doorknob” (Bronner 
40 – 42). To ward off an insult, a child might use the countertaunt “I’m rubber, 
you’re glue, everything you say bounces back to you” or “I know you are, but 
what am I?” The Knapps provide a good selection of countertaunts in 
One Potato, 
Two Potato
(68– 69).
In 2003 a study at the University of Central Lancashire in England showed 
that more than a third of primary-school children with cellular phones had re-
ceived name-calling text messages. Some of these messages sounded threatening 
enough to qualify as bullying, according to Sean Coughlan. Although such infor-
mation is not available for all schools, it seems clear that name-calling through 
text messaging has entered the childhood underground.
SONGS
Little children learn simple songs from their parents, preschool teachers, and 
other caregivers. Some songs, such as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Mary 
Had a Little Lamb,” belong to the rich tradition of nursery rhymes chronicled by 
Iona and Peter Opie in their 
Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.
Lullabies calm 

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children down; alphabet songs help them remember the letters of the alphabet. 
As they listen to such songs, children learn that singing combines entertainment 
with functionality.
In “Songs, Poems, and Rhymes,” C. W. Sullivan III observes that children “will 
make up songs and rhymes about anything and everything” (159). They dis-
card many songs soon after coming up with them; few songs last for long, but 
the process of invention and transmission keeps traditional material circulating 
(159 – 60). In some settings, such as bus rides on the way to summer camp, songs 
give youngsters a chance to have some irreverent fun.
Parodies, which subvert “serious” songs, TV commercial jingles, and other 
songs created by adults, have a strong appeal. Simon J. Bronner devotes one 
chapter of his 
American Children’s Folklore 
to children’s creative and traditional 
parodies (95–112). Josepha Sherman’s and T.K.F. Weisskopf ’s 
Greasy Grimy Go-
pher Guts
(1995) includes variants of many memorable song parodies, some of 
which are spectacularly gross and cleverly phrased.
In “Gopher Guts and Army Trucks” (1999), Josepha Sherman suggests that 
songs and rhymes reveal “children’s awareness of changing cultural and societal 
mores” (17). Her study of songs about torturing teachers shows that imagery has 
become increasingly violent since the late 1960s. In the 1950s, for example, many 
parodies of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” included the line “I bopped her 
on the bean / With a rotten tangerine”; in the mid-1990s, versions of that line 
included “I met her in the attic / With a loaded automatic” and “I met her at 
the bank / With a U.S. Army tank” (18–19). Such changes reflect a higher toler-
ance for graphic violence in the culture of adults, closely observed—and creatively 
expressed—by children.
CHEERS
First collected from African American girls in the 1970s, cheers alternate a 
group’s words with the words of soloists. Girls chant rhymes while clapping, 
stamping their feet, and doing body pats. Unlike clapping games, cheers do not 
involve one participant touching another. In