Origins: Thirty days hath September

Subject: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST,Aurora Leigh
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 12:04 PM

Does anybody here know how old the Month rhyme is? You know, the one that goes "Thirty Days Hat September ..."?

Thanks

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 12:09 PM

the earliest reference I find to it is (in Latin) William Harrison: Description of Britain (prefixed to Holinshed's "Chronicle," 1577).

English versions begin showing up in print very soon thereafter.

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: masato sakurai
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 12:36 PM

See Iona and Peter Opie, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1997, no. 469).

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST,BFG
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 01:26 PM

I know one that goes:(In a West Country accent)

30 days hath Cucumber
Apron, Strings and No Wonder
All the rest have Strawberry-jam
Except my granny who knits fair-isle balaclavas for Gurkhas

That last line don't scan so well

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 01:32 PM

I remember learning this as an adult - having gone to French school, I was taught the knuckle method (start at the first finger knuckle, count knuckle (jan) - in between knuckles (feb) - next knuckle (mar) - in between (apr) and so on; when you get to the end of your hand (July) start over (August). The "knuckle" months have 31 days, the "between" months have fewer, and all you have to remember is that Feb has 28 or 29. NO rhyme but lots of reason!

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 01:38 PM

Mrrzy,
I have heard that one here in the UK,several years ago mind.I think the other one is easier 30 days have Sept,April,June and November all the rest has 31 except February which has 28 unless its a leap year and it has 29.

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: JudeL
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 02:25 PM

I learnt the last lines as:

"28 days clear, 29 each leap year"

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 03:05 PM

I always used to get the months muddled up though - so until I'd learnt it it didn't help!

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 03:07 PM

thirty days hath september
all the rest i cant remember
there's a calender on the wall
why bother with this stuff at all

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 03:13 PM

Many months I can't remember
is it june or perhaps december
if there WERE a calender on the wall
I WOULDN'T have to bother at all.

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: Little Robyn
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 03:14 PM

I know who that GUEST is - it's Sid Kipper, isn't it?
Robyn

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 06:15 PM

A version I heard ended

All the rest have thirty-one,
But February stands alone
With only twenty-eight.

If "one" actually rhymed with "alone" at the time of composition, that puts it back to the 17th century or earlier, according to the OED s.v. "one numeral a., pron.".

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 07:49 PM

The earliest English language example quoted by the Opies and rhyming "one" and "alone" (see reference above) is of 1577, though they refer to a "similar" text of 1555. It isn't obvious from the reference whether they mean the English or Latin in that last.

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:33 AM

Wonder what the rhyme was before old Julius and Augustus had months named after them?

36 days has September...

:D

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:44 AM

There's quite a useful page dedicated to the rhyme, with a number of versions included at this site. They claim a version in Richard Grafton's "Chronicles of England and date it 1590. Grafton died circa 1572 and based his Chronicles on a rhyming chronicle to 1438 by John Hardyng (1378-1465). One or both of these appear to have been a source for Holinshed, so the Opies' conclusions make sense so far.

The following version occurs in John Day's "The Return from Parnassus", 1601.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one;
Excepting leap year,--that's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.
   
According to this site the verses were originally written by Grafton in 1568. They give the following version

Thirty days hath September
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

In the same year that the Opies published their Dictionary, though, appeared a volume called "Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries" (R. H. Robbins, ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). In it is the following from British Library Harley MS 2341, fol. 5r.

Thirti Dayes hath Nouembir
Thirti dayes hath Nouembir,
April, June, and Septembir;
Of xxviijti is but oon,
And all the remenaunt xxxti and j.

This is loosely dated between 1300 and 1450, though I don't know the basis of this. The Opies (perhaps unsurprisingly) have not amended their Dictionary in later versions. This rhyme is available in Representative Poetry Online here.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: clueless don
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:45 AM

GUEST,Aurora Leigh,

The version I use is

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
except for February alone
which has twenty eight days clear,
and twenty nine in each leap year.

You will find a number of versions at this website:

www.leapzine.com/30Days.htm

Don

Subject: RE: Origins: Thirty days hath September
From: IanC
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:49 AM

Sorry

Guest above was me ... lost my cookie somehow.

:-(