Re: Submitted for your approval...

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Padrig Bryn yscrifef:

> Plus, the collection this comes from is getting on
> towards 400 years old.

I suppose this is the ancestor of the familiar "riddle-song";
the (somewhat illogical) lyrics of the version I learned are:

	I gave my love a cherry without no stone,
	I gave my love a chicken without no bone,
	I gave my love a ring without no end [In],
	I gave my love a baby with no cryin'.

	How can there be &c.

	A cherry when it's bloomin', it has no stone,
	A chicken when it's pippin', it has no bone,
	A ring when it's rollin, it has no end,
	And a baby when it's sleepin', has no cryin'.

I'm not sure where I learned this version from: it may be a
composite of several versions learned from recordings and
oral tradition.

According to http://members.aol.com/boscam/newbrit.htm ,
there are Russian and Yiddish versions too.

(Apologies to Padrig, who gets this message twice or thrice.)

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)