Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs

Subject: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs old
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 01:45 PM

In another thread, which I can't find now, there was talk of the origin of I Gave My Love a Cherry, and someone thought it derived from Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship, although the riddles are different.

I think it more likely related to a (Child?) ballad called something like "The Pretty Little Boy Just __??__ Years Old", in which it is clear the devil is trying to entrap the wise child with riddles much as in the Cherry song. Needless to say, the child's wise and pious answers defeat the devil.

Does anybody have the text of this, and tune? I couldn't find it in the DT.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 01:54 PM

I think you're mixing together Child #1 and #3. Riddles in #1, Little boy questioned in #3.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 04:02 PM

Indeed, I knew of most of those songs in the Child #1 and Child #4, and they clearly belong to the same tradition. But in the version that I remember hearing (seeing?) each answer ends, "said the pretty little boy, just _??__ years old" or some such words. And the whole thing ends on a rather formal, not to say doctrinal, Christian note, as I recall it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 04:32 PM

Seven years old, as I heard it. Child 3, and the title I knew as "The False Knight on the Road."

O where are you going, said the false, false, knight to the child on the road.

I am going to my school, said the little boy seven years old.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Susan of DT
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 07:35 PM

We have 5 versions of Child #3. Look at False Knight on the Road 2, which has a 7 year old.