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One Elephant
One elephant began to play
Upon a spider's web one day,
He found it such tremendous fun
That he called on another elephant to come.
Two elephants began to play . . .
[Ten] elephants began to play
Upon a spider's web one day,
But sad to say the web gave way
And that was the end of a perfect day.
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Coll. 1959 from a 16-year old girl from Motherwell,
Lanarkshire. One child starts singing, then a second joins
on behind, holding by the waist, and singing ("Two elephants"
etc.), and so on, till all are involved. The movements mimic
a grotesquely lurching pachyderm (point foot, back to first
position, forward three paces; repeat). Cf. "One little
elephant balancing" in Fowke SGS (1969), 42 (no. 40), from
Toronto. Opies Singing Game (1985), 367, with tune
(Manchester, 1975); and refs. to foreign versions.
MS