Hi,

Here is my study of 8C. On a Mountain Stands a Lady (Children's game song variants) Roud 2603 online: http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/8c-on-a-mountain-stands-a-lady.aspx

The versions of children's songs with text from "Madam, I Have Come to court You" may be thus categorized as:

1) nursery songs; see those by Haliwell and Newell which are shortened versions of "Madam."
2) ring game songs; see those by Babcock and Waugh which are also shortened versions of "Madam." They include game instructions.
3) ring game songs which use the standard opening: "On the mountain stands a lady/Who she is I do not know/All she wants is gold and silver/All she wants is a nice young man," which is a composite of two stanza of Madam with changes (mountain- nice young man).
4) ring game songs which use the "On the mountain stands a lady" standard opening but have additional dialogue and characters resembling "wooing" folk plays.
5) ring game songs which use the "On the mountain stands a lady" standard opening combined with "Madam will you walk" chorus (Keys of Heaven/Keys of Canterbury; see Sharp's 1911 version) and additional stanzas offering various gifts in exchange for marriage (Keys of Heaven). The ending has stanzas about going to the church and eating various meals.
6) skipping or jump rope versions which consist of the "On the mountain stands a lady" standard opening followed by invitations for new participants to enter and leave the game.
7) skipping or jump rope versions which consist of the "On the mountain stands a lady" standard opening combined with stanzas of other songs.

Here is an rough draft excerpt of my headnotes so far:

8C. On a Mountain Stands a Lady (Children's game song variants) Roud 2603. "There Stands a Lady" (Sharp); Yonder Stands a Lovely Lady; 'There She Stands a Lovely Creature; Lady on the Mountain (Opie); Lady on Yonder Hill

[Some lines and stanzas of the text of "Madam, I Am Come To Court You" has been adapted as nursery songs and children's game songs[1] in a variety of ways in both North America and the UK. Published versions of game songs began cropping up in the latter part of the 1800s. The North American versions appear to be closer to the original broadside texts but shortened while the UK texts use a modified opening stanza wed to other children's lyrics.

The theory that children's game song texts are similar to, or based on, courting texts associated with Mummer's plays and Plough plays found in The East Midland has been suggested by Baskervill and others who have written about the English wooing plays of the East Midlands[2]. Baskervill mentions "Lady on Yonder Hill," published by Mrs. Gomme [Traditional Games, I, 323-24]. The two "Madam, I have gold and silver" stanzas found in the plough plays bear the brunt of this association while the opening stanzas of "Madam" common in the UK children's games are not usually found in the Plough Play dialogues.

According to Baskervill[3], "Two versions of a children's game which are apparently mummers' wooing plays in the last stages of decay were naturally not taken into account, though they at least suggest the former currency of the type in other parts of England, since one came from Derbyshire and one from Suffolk."

In a footnote to the above paragraph Baskervill adds,"In the Derbyshire version, with an opening "Yonder stands a lovely lady," like a line in the Bassingham plays printed below, the rebuffed wooer falls on the ground and is revived by the Good Fairy. In the Suffolk version the Gentleman stabs the Lady and then revives her, calling her out of her trance with lines similar to the corresponding lines in the Bassingham, Cropwell, and Axholme plays."

The original Mummer's plays, now called "Quack Doctor Plays" by Peter Millington are much older[4] but evidence of the use of "Madam" text with its identifying "Madam I have gold and silver" stanza has been wanting until the later part of the 1800s and early 1900s. Millington also suggests the plays text was "added to pre-existing house-visiting customs, and that this took place sometime during the early to mid 18th century, as an extension of the entertainments that these customs already possessed." This would mean that the "gold and silver" stanzas of Madam found in the plays would be in circulation in that area at the time of the plays creation.

The children's games would also have been created during the same general time period, mid-1800s and adapted from local versions of "Madam." These games would be developed from, and along with, the nursery rhymes sung by children during that period. The first two lines of the first stanza of "Madam" has been used as the first two lines of the standard children's game identifying stanza by modifying the first line. It appears in a variety of ways:

    There stands a lady on the mountain,
    Who she is I do not know:
    Oh! she wants such gold and silver!
    Oh! she wants such a nice young man!

or,

    There stands a lady on a mountain,
    Who she is I do not know;
    All she wants is gold and silver,
    All she wants is a nice young man.

It also appears with the text reversed: "On a mountain stands a lady." The image of a lady on a "mountain" or "hillside" makes the stanza easily identified. It's derived from the first two lines of the opening stanza of "Madam[5]":

Yonder sits a lovely creature,
Who is she? I do not know,
I'll go court her for her features,
Whether her answer be "Ay" or "no."

The source of "mountain" is unknown and only one reference is given to a mountain in the related "Madam" songs (see: The Dumb Lady-- 1672). The two lines are combined with a two-line variation of the last "gold and silver" stanza of "Madam" (the woman's response):

What care I for gold and silver,
What care I for house and land
What care I for rings and jewels,
If I had but a handsome man."

In the text used for the children's game song based on "Madam," a "handsome man" is now a "nice young man" and the young lady who eschewed the "gold and silver" for a "handsome man" now wants "gold and silver." The two "gold and silver" stanzas from "Madam" are substantially the only text borrowed from "Madam" in the various wooing plays. The date these ring games and children's songs appeared in the UK is unknown but the empirical evidence points to the later half of the 1800s although they could have appeared shortly after the printed broadsides (c.1760).

The nursery rhymes and children's game songs are not the same texts-- in general the nursery rhymes are shortened texts of "Madam" with little variation. The first evidence that "Madam" was used as a nursery rhyme was a version published by Halliwell-Phillips in a number of books[6] of nursery rhymes including the 1846 book, "The Nursery Rhymes of England, obtained principally from oral tradition." Halliwell gives this English version:

?MADAM, I am come to court you,
If your favour I can gain.?
?Ah, ah!? said she, ?you are a bold fellow,
If I e'er see your face again!"

?Madam, I have rings and diamonds,
Madam, I have houses and land,
Madam, I have a world of treasure,
All shall be at your command.?

?I care not for rings and diamonds,
I care not for houses and lands,
I care not for a world of treasure,
So that I have but a handsome man.?

?Madam, you think much of beauty,
Beauty hasteneth to decay,
For the fairest of flowers that grow in summer
Will decay and fade away

Haliwell gives no source of the nursery rhyme although the book notes claim it was taken from tradition. Despite missing the opening stanza usually associated with the game/skipping songs, this short version has the core "gold and silver" stanzas. It's an indication that the broadside stanzas were known in tradition at that time (see 8. Madam, I Have Come to Court You for the mid-1700s texts). In his 1875 book, "Around the Tea-table," Thomas De Witt Talmage says:

After tea the parlour is full of romp. The children are playing ' Ugly Mug,' and 'Mrs Wiggins,' and 'Stage Coach/ and 'Bear/ and 'Tag/ and 'Yonder stands a lovely creature.'

Clearly the nursery rhymes published by Halliwell and others were not just sung but were also children's games. Although Talmage does not describe the game, variants of "Madam" were used a singing game in a variety of ways in both North America and the UK. An article by W. H. Babcock was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, Volume 37, 1886 titled, "Song games and Myth Dramas at Washington." Part of the first stanzas and two other core stanzas were included along with a description of the game:

There are other ring?games in which love does not divide the interest with death, but forms the sole subject-matter. In one of these what must have been originally a dialogue is blended into a continuous song, in which all join:

Here she stands, a lovely creature;
Who she is I do not know.

Madam, I have gold and silver,
Madam, I have ships on the ocean,
Madam, I have house and land.

What care I for your gold and silver?
What care I for ships on the ocean?
What care I for house and land?
All I want is a fine young man.

Then a member of the ring is selected by the one in the middle to take his or her place.
* * * *

Richie