Doe anyone recall playing the game where you sang. "Ha ha ha you can't catch me catch that little boy/girl under the tree"? I can remember singing it in England as a kid .
I was reading the note to the tune Harvey Duff in Zinnermann's book of Irish rebel broadside songs a couple of days ago . It sounded like the same tune - if I read the music correctly . According to Zinnermann ,Brendan Behan remembered when he was a kid singing the words "Harvey Duff you can't catch me , catch that little boy under the tree" to the tune whwenever there was a policeman around . Apparantly the song ,or the tune whistled ,used to drive the police to the point of fury in the nineteenth century .
Harvey Duff was the name of the police informer who came to an untimely end in Dion Bioucalt's comedy , The Shaughrin .Zinnermann speculated that the tune may have come from the play and that it was perhaps used whenever the Harvey Duff character appeared or was about to appear on stage.

Does anyone have any information or thoughts about this. I had always thought that the kid's tune was some sort of primal chant that came naturally to children ,but perhaps it was composed. If so ,by who?