1. "Poem help"
Posted by Stefani on Sep-16th-02 at 11:43 PM

I had an email from somebody searching for the poem that begins:
"There's a house in Fall River that will cause you to shiver, although there's no chill in the air,"  . . .

I can't find it and it does not ring a bell. Have any of you heard of it? Can you help me out with a title, author, or the rest of the poem?

Stefani, Kimberly just posted that poem like last week thought I don't recall what post heading it is under.  I think Kat may have found out who wrote it? 

nah, she posted a poem that was about a poor woman. It was a good one, but not this one. Unless I missed it. I can't find it. Did a search on this forum with the word 'shiver' and came up empty.

Is that the one from the video?
Kim posted that, from The Country Lawyer. 
Not only did she post it, she had to rewind and run and rewind and run the tape in order to transcribe it!
Thanks Kim!
http://www.arborwood.com/awforums/show-topic-1.php?start=61&fid=27&taid=1&topid=684
by Michael Wilkerson, the Discovery Channel video.
SEE POSTS #65  &  #68

Pie on my face!

At least it is Key LIme.

Thanks Kimberly for the transcription. and Susan for pointing it out. And Kat for finding it.

What would I do without you guys?

Pigeon pie?  Fresh from the barn.

Ooooo, or how about Cow Pie fresh from the farm in Swansea? 

I PREFER Key Lime, but I would accept pecan just as easily.

Pigeon pie? Cow pies? You guys need a hobby! Oh, yeah, this is your hobby. Never mind. Carry on. 

By Jamie Johnson, London, UK.

(Message last edited Sep-17th-02  7:16 PM.)

Now that is funny!  Andrew would have had the first franchise in Fall River. 

Ohmigawd, Kat!  That is great!  Wasn't I just going off about this?  Instead of chicken, why can't fast food joints use pigeon instead!!!

Pigeon Pie anyone?

Susan, you are just obsessed with pigeons, you are
going to end up pecked to death, didn't you ever see
Hitchcock's 'The Birds'? They get real mean, real fast.

I said, Pigeon Pie anyone?


(Message last edited Sep-17th-02  11:05 PM.)

Ya know, that reminds me, when I was a young'un someone
gave me an incubator with quail eggs to hatch, I kept it
on my dresser in my bedroom & they hatched & I got two
baby quails to raise. On my dresser, of course. Wild as hell,
one always pecked the other, finally a snake came into the house
after them & my mother made me get rid of them. I gave them
to the man who ran the pet store, he was very eager to get them,
my cousin said he ate them

My friend, Angela, calls me Tippi after the actress in The Birds whenever I complain about pigeons, okay, Tippi, they're out to get you!

Uh, Stefani, maybe you'd get some takers on your pie if you sprinkled it with some rosewater to make it more "tempting"? 

Quite by accident, I ran across this poem last night in one of the early issues of the Lizzie Borden Quarterly.  I didn't jot down the issue, but it was from the mid 90s.  There's a lot of good stuff in those old LBQS (and a lot of repetitious stuff too), but they, like Rebello, could use a good index.

There is an index to the LBQs. On my web site! Two indexes, in fact. By issue and by author. You can use your browser's search feature to find a specific word or phrase, or use the search feature on the first page.

enjoy!

Fall/Winter '95, pg.11

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds baked in a pie" is an old Ma Goose song.
It refers to the "ortolan" (French word) that is now protected. This bird is baked, then eaten whole. According to a news report last year.

When I told one of my kids to use the dictionary rather than ask me how to spell a word, he said, "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?"  I'm somewhat in the same position, I fear.

This is driving me birdie!
What is the first line to "Four & Twenty Black Birds"?
I have an annotated Mother Goose and I can't look it up!
I remember everything that comes AFTER that phrase---selective amnesia!

"Sing a song of six pence
A pocketful of rye
Four and Twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie
When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?"

No, I didn't look it up, but I'm sure it's about 95% correct.
I remember all of the poems and stories my mother used to tell me
. . . so how come I can't remember what I had for lunch, yesterday?"  

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rhy,

 

(Message last edited Sep-20th-02  9:45 AM.)

Lets hope that rye wasn't infected with Ergot! 

The Annotated Mother Goose, William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., New York, 1962: pg. 26-28:

"Sing a Song of Sixpence,   1
A bag full of Rye,    2
Four and twenty     3
Naughty boys,     4
Bak'd in a Pye    5.

When the pie was opened,
The birds bagan to sing;
Was that not a dainty dish,
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting-house,   6
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
There came a little blackbird,
And snapped off her nose.    7

[--"Tom Thumb's Pretty Song Book, Vol. II"--earliest known book of nursery rhymes still existing, by London Publisher Mary Cooper, about 1744.  It is surmised that earlier collected editions were of c. 1620.]

#1 " Scholars have seen supposed references to this nursery rhyme in Twelth Night--Come on, there is sixpence for you;  let's have a song;  and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca (1614)--Whoa here's a stir now!  Sing a song of sixpence!

#2  A pocket full of rye in most later versions.  It is possible that 'a pocket full' was once a specific measurement in recipes as 'a tablespoon full of sugar.'

#3  We shall find that 'four and twenty' is one of the numbers most frequently met with in 'Mother Goose' rhymes.  It is, of course, a 'double dozen' and the number 12 is rich in associations, traditions, and superstitions.

#4  Later Four and twenty blackbirds.  Theories about this rhyme abound:  the 'blackbirds' are the twenty-four hours in a day, 'the king' is the sun, and 'the queen' is the moon, for example.  On the other hand, Katherine Elwes Thomas identified the king as HenryVIII, the queen as Katherine, and the maid as Anne Boleyn;  the 'blackbirds' were four and twenty manorial deeds baked in a pie--as in 'Little Jack Horner.'  Still another theory holds that this song celebrates the printing of the first English Bible--the 'Blackbirds' being the letters of the alphabet set in pica type ('baked in a pie').

#5  According to Iona and Peter Opie, the editors of The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, an Italian cookbook of 1549, translated into English in 1598, actually contains a recipe 'to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up.'  They continue:  'This dish is further referred to (1723) by John Nott, cook to the Duke of  Bolton, as a practice of former days, the purpose of the birds being to put out the candles and so cause a "diverting Hurley-Burley amongst the Guests in the Dark." '

#6  A 'counting-house' was the house or office used to conduct the business of an establishment--much referred to in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

#7  Later versions provide happy endings:
They sent for the king's doctor,
Who sewed it on again,
He sewed it on so neatly,
The seam was never seen.
   OR:
But there came a Jenny Wren
And popped it on again."

--This rhyme sounds almost like the legend surrounding Lizzie Borden.
The king & queen are Andrew and Abby
The maid is Bridget or Lizzie
The pie= the controversy over food (mutton, meals, who eats with whom, etc.)
The birds in the pie = the dead pigeons
Andrew's in his "counting house"--he cares about money and running an "establishment" or business...
The queen is just plain *eating*.
A "pocket-ful of rye" is an ingrediant in the recipe for disaster
Six-pence is sixpence....is Money.
If the maid[en] Lizzie had her "nose" "snipped", that is her arrest and trial
Her nose sewed back on again:  she is acquitted but the "seam" is still "seen".
Or a "Jenny Wren" came:  Her friendship with Nance...

--This may be reaching but the more I transcribed the more coincidental this rhyme and this legend seemed to each other.

Thanks for the start to the rhyme, guys!


(Message last edited Sep-21st-02  4:16 AM.)

Wow!  Very cool, Kat!  What other nursery rhymes and songs can we find that we deconstruct with Lizzie?  London Bridge?