rock (Die deutschen Volkslieder, p. 520) says that “Who knoweth One?” was originally a German peasants’ drinking-song; that it was changed by the monks into an ecclesiastical song, very similar to the form in which we know it; and that afterward, probably during the latter half of the 16th century, it suffered a further adaptation and found a place in the Passover service of the German Jews. “Ehad Mi Yodea”—to give it its Hebrew title—has, however, since been found in the Avignon ritual as a festal table-song for holy-days in general, so that its inclusion in the Jewish Passover service may have been earlier than Simrock surmised. It appears that to the early manuscript Jewish prayer-books it was customary to append popular stories and ballads. That may have been the case with the two songs in question, in which event it is easy to see how they may gradually have been absorbed into, and have become, an integral part of the service itself.
The Rev. A. A. Green, in The revised Hagada, expresses the opinion that both of these accumulative songs are essentially Hebrew nursery-rhymes, and he regrets “that they have ever been regarded as anything else.” He quotes the first verse of the Scottish “Song of Numbers:”
We will all gae sing, boys.
Where will we begin, boys?
We’ll begin the way we should
And we’ll begin at one, boys.
The literature on the subject is a very large one. Those who are interested in the matter should consult the articles “Ehad Mi Yodea” and “Had Gadya” in the Jewish Encyclopædia (volumes v and vi), where many authorities are quoted. It will be noticed that all the Christian forms of the song stop at the number twelve. It has been suggested that the Hebrew version was purposely extended to thirteen, the unlucky number, in order that the Jew might be able to feel that with him thirteen was a holy and, therefore, lucky number.
Like many accumulative songs, “The Ten Commandments” is a most interesting one to listen to. The best folksingers combine their musical phrases in a different manner in each verse, and in so doing display no little ingenuity. Their aim, no doubt, is to compound the phrases so as to avoid the too frequent recurrence of the full-close. I should have liked to have shown exactly how the singer sang each verse of the song, but this would have entailed printing every one of the twelve verses, and consideration of space forbade this. I have, however, given the last verse in full, and this, I hope, will be some guide to the singer.
A form of this song, “Green grow the rushes, O,” is known at Eton, and is printed in English County Songs (p. 158); and Sullivan introduced a version into The Yeomen of the Guard.
No. 98. The Tree in the Wood
Miss Mason prints an interesting Devon variant in Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs (p. 26), and there is another version from the same county in the Rev. S. Baring-Gould’s Songs of the West (No. 104, 1st ed.). In his note to the latter, Mr. Baring-Gould says that under the name of “Ar parc caer” the song is well known in Brittany (see Luzel’s Chansons Populaires de la Basse Bretagne). There are also French (“Le Bois Joli”) and Danish forms of the song. See also the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume iii, p. 277); Journal of the Welsh Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 40); and Folk-Songs from Somerset (No. 93).
The version given here has not been previously published. The tune, wich is in the Æolian mode, is a variant of “Come all you worthy Christian men” (No. 91).
This is one of the easiest of all accumulative songs, both to learn and to sing, and it may, of course, be lengthened indefinitely, according to the taste and inventive powers of the singer.
No. 99. The Barley-Mow
I have a large number of variants of this song, which used to be in great request at Harvest Homes.
Chappell, without giving its origin, prints a traditional version in his Popular Music (p. 745),
