Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/184

 1 68 Collectanea.

[ The two following printed versions are appended for the sake of comparison :

" At Islip in Oxfordshire, the children, on Shrove-Tuesday, go round to the various houses to collect pence, saying:

" Pit-a-pat, the pan is hot We are come a-Shroving : A little bit of bread and cheese Is better than nothing. The pan is hot, the pan is cold ; Is the fat in the pan nine days old ? " J. O. Hallivvell, Popular Rhymes (1849), PP- 245-6.

" In Oxfordshire the following version has been met with :

" Knick, knock, the pan's hot, And we be come a Shro\'ing ; A bit of bread, a bit of cheese, A bit of barley dompling That's better than nothing. Open the door and let us in, For we be come a-pancaking."

Brand, Popular Antiquities ;^ed. 1870), i., 48. ]

The following is from Worminghall, Bucks, and the neigh- bouring part of Oxfordshire :

'' Poor Jack."

Shrove Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday,

Poor Jack went to plough ; His mother made pancakes,

But did not know how.

She turned them, she tossed them,

She made them so black. She put in so much pepper.

She poisoned Poor Jack. (January, 1899.)

May Day : — On May Day at Spelsburv, the school children go in procession with a garland carried on a stick between two of them. They choose a " Lord " and a " Lady," who are dressed in white, with coloured ribbons ; the rest carry " maces," i.e. sticks dressed in ribbons and flowers. The following song is sung :