Charlie, Mrs. Cronin sang the song for me in 1952, and definitely it was "Mister Frog went out to ride..." and he was the one courting Mistress Mouse. "Ask my Uncle Rat, says she," comes later, and it's Uncle Rat who makes the wedding. So someone has got the song all mixed up- is that the folk process? Maybe so!

Anyway, we got the song again later from Seamus Ennis, and it now reposes in our Archive at the James Hardiman Library in Galway. Seamus also got it from Elizabeth Cronin, as he and Peter Kennedy visited her a year or two earlier. Seamus' song goes like this:

Mister Frog went out to ride,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
Mister Frog went out to ride,
Kittle alone and I.
Mister Frog went out to ride,
Sword and buckles by his side-
To me tat, me tear, me ditt'n O dill,
Kitty alone and I!(tear is pronounced tare, as in "tear your clothes"

It's a lovely lilting tune. Makes one want to skip, and I bet many a child has done so when singing it!