Getting back to the original request by Margo, about putting a fox in a box, the oldest citation I can find is from

Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings,
edited by Charlotte Sophia Burne from the collections of Georgina F. Jackson,
London: Trübner & Co., 1883, page 514:


16. ‘A-hunting we will go.’ No ring; the players march two and two along the play-ground, and at the end turn from each other to right and left; the two lines march to the other end and meet again, as in the country-dance Sir Roger de Coverley.

Chorus. ‘A-hunting we will go,
A-hunting we will go!
We'll catch a little fish,
And put him in a dish,
And never let him go!’

[found in] Ellesmere


A later reference is in:

English Folk-rhymes: A Collection of Traditional Verses Relating to Places and Persons, Customs, Superstitions, etc.
By G. F. Northall
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1892, page 387.

The players march two and two along the playground, and, at the end, turn from each other to right and left; the two lines march to the other end and meet again as in Sir Roger de Coverley—

“A hunting we will go (repeat),
We'll catch a little fish,
And put him in a dish,
And never let him go.”

Ellesmere, Shropshire. AP. 514. In Derbyshire they say—

We'll catch a fox, and put him in a box,
And a-hunting, etc.-AR. i. 387.