john f weldon, I associate those two lines

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head"

with the children's singing game "London Bridge Is Falling Down"

Are they part of the version of London Bridge that you know?

I remember singing

First verse:
London bridge is falling down
falling down
falling down
London bridge is falling down
My fair lady.

Second verse: [this was sometimes omitted]
Take a key and lock her* up
lock her* up
lock her* up
Take a key and lock her* up
My fair lady.

Third verse
Here comes the hammer to chop off her* head
chop off her* head
chop off her* head
Here comes the hammer to chop off her* head
My fair lady.

* "Her" was changed to "him" if a boy was the one caught, However, even if the "prisoner" was a boy, the ending was always "My fair lady".

I certainly didn't uderstand what the words to this song meant. For instance, I didn't know that "London" was a city anywhere, or what that "London bridge" actually referred to a bridge [or as a little child knew what a "bridge" was]. And I didn't know what "My fair lady" meant. As an adult. I'm guessing that it meant "My beautiful lady", but as a child I didn't have a clue what it meant, and actually didn't really care whether the words meant anything at all. In addition, I don't think that I thought of the words to the song as being gruesome, although someone chopping off another person's head is certainly gruesome. Words to this singing game and other singing games were just words that were sung and actions that were played because that's how we learned them. I don't even remember how I learned this song & its accompanying actions. I suppose that some older child or my mother or some teacher taught it to me & my sisters.

Here's how I remember playing London Bridge in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the early-mid 1950s:

Girls and boys [probaby 6-10 years old] played this game without adult initiation by having two kids stand facing each other. These "guards" would make an arch by stretching their arms above their heads and holding the other child's hands. I'm calling them guards, but I don't think we called them anything or maybe we called them "the leaders". As I recall, these two were the only ones who sung the song.

The other players formed a line and walked under that arch {which I suppose represented the bridge, but I don't think I knew that as a child}. The line of children started out walking moderately fast in time with the song. But, when the song got very near the end of the second verse {or the end of the first verse if the second verse was omitted}, the children walked faster because no one wanted to be the one who got caught. At the beginning of the second verse {or the beginning of the third verse if the second verse was omitted} the two "guards" brought their arms down and still tightly held each other hands. By this action, they "caught" the child who was walking under the arch at that time. This child was the "prisoner" {although we didn't use that referent or any referent except "the one who got caught". That "prisoner" stayed inside the enclosed hands throughout the second verse {if it was sung} and the third verse. The "guards" swayed back & forth while singing the "here comes the hammer to chop off your head" verse. The other children remained in the line watching. They may have sung too, but my recollection of that is cloudy. At the end of the third verse, supposedly, the prisoner became one of the guards, and the song continued from the beginning. One of the former "guards" was supposed to join the line with the other children. I believe this "former guard" was supposed to go to the end of the line. The second time the game was played, that former guard was also supposed to join the line of children, and in that way, every player would have a turn as the guard. However, sometimes because of the strength of their personality :o) the "guards" refused to relinquish their roles, and kept on singing and capturing other children in their handhold until-for whatever reason-the game ended.

The object of London Bridge was not to be "captured" in the handhold. Notwithstanding the words of the song's third verse, the action of the game didn't have anything inat all to do with a person's head. There wasn't any touching or chopping motions or hitting that occurred near or actually to the captured child's head.

**

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_is_Falling_Down provides the lyrics to several versions of "London Bridge" that don't include this "hammer [or chopper] to chop off her head" line. However, that article describes a similar performance activity of a line of children walking through an arch formed by two children.

**

PS: My children grew up with this song because I taught it to them. My recollection is that their friends and schoolmates [in Pittsburgh, 1980s] didn't know this game/song. Also, the children in the after-school groups that I facilitated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the late 1990s to 2006 didn't know this singing game before I taught it to them.

It seems that the only singing games that they did know were the circle games "Ring Around The Rosie", "Hokey Pokey", and "Little Sally Walker" {which I knew as "Little Sally Ann}, and "Going To Kentucky". Actually, the children in the late 1990s, knew two versions of "Little Sally Walker". Two examples of this updated version-"Little Sally Walker {Was Walking Down The Street}" are posted on this page of my website: http://cocojams.com/games_children_play.htm. I collected one of those examples from some children in a Pittsburgh, PA neighborhood-and then subsequently heard it sung by other children when I asked about it. The other remarkably similar example was posted in 2004 by LNL on Mudcat's Children's Street Songs thread. And, if I recall correctly, this newer version of "Little Sally Walker" has been posted on that same Mudcat thread or another Mudcat thread at least one other time by another person.