Dear Ewan: It isn't "Camptown Races", it's "Polly Wolly Doodle", one stanza of which goes [or did until it was seen as racist!] "Oh I came to a river, and I couldn't get across/Sing Polly etc./ So I jumped on a nigger, 'cause I thought he was a hoss, /Sing Polly etc."
This I have found in a version of your song [what is it, actually?] namely "Hey, Cocky Doo", from Dundee, in the Montgomeries' "Sandy Candy", 1948:
Hey, Cocky doo, How d'ye do? Sailin aboot In yer best o blue. An alpaca frock, A green silk shawl, A white straw bonnet, And a pink parasol. I gaed tae the river, I cudna get across, I paid ten shillins For an auld blin horse. I jumped on his back, He fell wi a crack, So I played the fiddle Till the boat cam back. The other song is probably not connected, for I'd say the names/rhymes are coincidental. I'm reminded though of a bit of a version of "Sally Water" (as the English collector Lady Gomme titles it) in her "Traditional Games of England, Scotland & Ireland", II.163, from Aberdeen Training College: "...Raffles up, and raffles down, and raffles a' a dancin',/ The bonniest lassie that ever I saw,/ Was [child in the centre] dancin'." This itself reminds me (albeit faintly) of the 5th verse of Robert Burns' version of "The Ploughman": "Snaw-white stockins on his legs,/ And siller buckles glancin;/ A gude blue bannet on his head,/ And O but he was handsome!"
I'd appreciate a word from you (by private e-mail if you like) about your rhymes. Cheers Murray@saltspring.com
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