Thank you Sakurai for pointing a direction.

Thank you Mr. Dixon - very interesting.

SOURCE: Opie, Iona and Peter editors, Oxford Dictionary of Nursury Rhymes Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1955 pp 107-108.

Come, Butter, come,
Come, butter, come;
Peter stands at the gate
Waiting for a butter cake.
Come, butter, come.

Although this centuries-old charm was still in superstitious use at the time, it was set to music in 1798 as a 'Bagatelle for Juvenile Amusement'. Indeed its supernatural aid has been consistently called upon through 400 years of Protestantism. Thomas Ady, writing in 1656, knew an old woman who said the butter would come straight away if it was repeated three times, ' for it was taught my Mother by a learned Church-man in Queen Maries days, when as Churchmen had more cunning and could teach people many a trick, that our Minister now a days know not.

A writer in Folk-Lore in 1878 said, 'I have often heard our cook repeating [this rhyme] over her churn when the butter was slow in forming'. Crofton says it was 'well known in Reddish Vale, on the border of Lancashire and Cheshire in 1880.'

Another writer, in 1936, heard it recited in Southern Indiana 'to the accompanying splash of the old-fashioned churn when the butter was slow in coming. It is indeed easy to believe that the pixies have got into the churn when the cream will not clot, although one has been steadily turning the handle for twice as long as usual.

The strange line 'Peter stands at the gate' is found in other charms, as in one for toothache beginning ' When Peter sat at Jerusalem's gate', and may be traced back to the old story of St. Peter, when our Lord relieved him of his troubles 'Ad portam Galylee iacebat Petrus. Enit dominus et interrogavit eum…. It may be compared with a Spanish charm ' Appollonia was at the gate of heave', and perhaps be traced back ultimately to the prayer of Seth the son of Adam at the gates of Paradise in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus.

Footnoted from source: A Candle in the Dark, Thomas Ady, 1656 / Satan's Invisible World Discovered George Sinclair, 1685, probably quoting Ady / Christmas Box vol. iii, 1798 / JOH, 1842 / Northhamptonshire Words,

A.E. Baker, 1854,
"Churn butter, churn,
In a cow's horn;
I never see'd such butter,
Sin' I was born.
Peter's waiting at the gate', &c.

Also

' Churn, butter, churn.
Come butter, come,
A little good butter is better than none'

/ Folk-Lore, 1878 and 1936 / Lincolnshire Glossary, Mabel Peacock, 1889,

"Churn, butter, dash,
Cow's gone to the marsh,
Peter stands at the toll gate
Begging butter for his cake;
Come, butter, come!'

/ Crofton MS, 1901 ' Mother Goose's NR, L. E. Walter, 1924.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle