Just a note to attach to this discussion. My mother claims she knows the correct tune as she learned it from our old family friend Dennis Puleston but, alas, I can only supply the chords. Her wording is similar to the DT; at least it's in the same dysfunctional family.

The version I learned had a happier ending for the mother and daughter than one of the ones up above (which has a happy ending for the lion):

Words by John Gilroy; music by E. Ray Goetz – New York: Vogel Music Co., © 1906
Mock ballad from The Blue Moon
From singing of Dennis Puleston, Long Island, NY
Don't Go in the Lions' Cage

Dm
A lady once she had a lovely daughter,
-----Am---------------------------Dm
That lady was an actress on the stage

She'd walk into a cage of angry lions
------Am---------------------------Dm
Them lions they was always in a rage.

One day her daughter had a premonition
----Am--------------------------------------Dm
That everything that night would not go right

And so she told her mother in the kitchen,
Am-------------------------------Dm
“Don't go in that lions' cage to-night!”


Chorus:

C-----F
“Oh, don't go in that lions' cage, dear mother, dear, tonight;
-------C--------------------------------F
Them lions is ferocious and might bite!
--------------Bb----------------------------F
When they get them angry fits, they'll tear you into little bits,
---C------------------C7--------------F
So don't go in that lions' cage to-night.”

The lady laughed “Ha, ha!” She did not heed the warning
That unto her the daughter she did give;
“Oh, no!” she cried, “I do not fear them lions;
Not one of them could make me cease to live!”
She went into that cage of angry lions,
Them lions was ferocious as could be;
“Alas!” she cried as one strode up and bit her,
“I now recall what daughter said to me!” (CHO)

“Oh, who will save my mother?” cried the daughter;
“By lions she is being bit and et!”
“I will!” replied a young man in the gallery;
“I'll save your mother, you can bet!”
He strode into that cage of angry lions;
He quelled them and the mother res-cu-ed;
“Here's your ma,” he said, as he kissed the daughter;
“For I have loved you ever since you said:” (CHO)

Cheerily,
Charlie Ipcar