English Fairy Tales

II. THE THREE SILLIES.
Source.—From Folk-Lore Journal, ii. 40-3; to which it was
communicated by Miss C. Burne.
Parallels.—Prof. Stephens gave a variant from his own
memory in Folk-Lore Record, iii. 155, as told in Essex at the
beginning of the century. Mr. Toulmin Smith gave another
version in The Constitutional, July 1, 1853, which was trans-
lated by his daughter, and contributed to Mélusine, t. ii. An
Oxfordshire version was given in Notes and Queries, April
17, 1852. It occurs also in Ireland, Kennedy, Fireside Stories,
p. 9. It is Grimm’s Kluge Else, No. 34, and is spread through
the world. Mr. Clouston devotes the seventh chapter of his
Book of Noodles to the Quest of the Three Noodles.
III. THE ROSE TREE.
Source.—From the first edition of Henderson’s Folk-Lore of
Northern Counties, p. 314, to which it was communicated
by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
Parallels.—This is better known under the title, “Orange
and Lemon,” and with the refrain:
“My mother killed me,
My father picked my bones,
My little sister buried me,
Under the marble stones.”
I heard this in Australia. Mr. Jones Gives part of it in Folk
Tales of the Magyars, 418-20, and another version occurs in
4 Notes and Queries, vi. 496. Mr. I. Gollancz informs me he
remembers a version entitled “Pepper, Salt, and Mustard,”
with the refrain just given. Abroad it is Grimm’s “Juniper
Tree” (No. 47), where see further parallels. The German
rhyme is sung by Margaret in the mad scene of Goethe’s
“Faust.”

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144
English Fairy Tales
IV. OLD WOMAN AND PIG.
Source.—Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes and Tales, 114.
Parallels.—Cf. Miss Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, 529; also
No. xxxiv. infra (“Cat and Mouse”). It occurs also in Scotch,
with the title “The Wife and her Bush of Berries,” Chambers’s
Pop. Rhymes, p. 57. Newell, Games and Songs of American
Children, gives a game named “Club-fist” (No. 75), founded
on this, and in his notes refers to German, Danish, and Span-
ish variants. (Cf. Cosquin, ii. 36 seq.)
Remarks.—One of the class of Accumulative stories, which
are well represented in England. (Cf. infra, Nos. xvi., xx.,
xxxiv.)