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Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs

09 Sep 00 - 01:45 PM (#294158)
Subject: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs old
From: Uncle_DaveO

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


09 Sep 00 - 01:54 PM (#294163)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: GUEST

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


09 Sep 00 - 04:02 PM (#294221)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Uncle_DaveO

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


09 Sep 00 - 04:32 PM (#294231)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Bud Savoie

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.


09 Sep 00 - 07:35 PM (#294280)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Child?ballad Little Boy Just ___ yrs
From: Susan of DT

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