Ballads & Songs of Southern Michigan-songbook

A Collection of 200+ traditional songs & variations with commentaries including Lyrics & Sheet music

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	Nursery	455
	189 THE FROG'S COURTSHIP Kiitredge notes, ]AFL, XXXV, 394-399, that the earliest record of this song, if it really is the same, is the mention in Wedderburn's Complaint of Scotland, 1549, according to which one of the songs sung by the shepherds was "The irog cam to the myl dur." The first certain record is the licensing to Edward White at Stationers' Hall in 1580 of "A Moste Strange Weddinge of the ffrogge and the mowse." For further history of the song and for a reprint of the first traditional version including the wedding guest feature see L. W. Payne, Jr., "Some Texas Versions of The Frog's Courting,' " PTFLS, V, 5-48 This song, which has been very popular and which has been used as a nursery and game song, has many variations For British texts see William Chappell, Old English Popttlat Music (London, 1893), T» H- Halhwell, pp. 110-112, JFSS, II, 226-227, IIFSS, IV, 22; Thomas Lyle, Ancient Ballads and Songs (London, 1827), p. 65, and Williams, p. 133. For other references and Amer­ican texts see Allsopp, II, 194, Eddy, No. 39, Greenleaf and Mansfield, p 90; Henry, ]AFL, XLII, 297-300; Hudson, ]AFL, XXXIX, 166-167; Mackenzie, PP. 373-374; Scarborough, pp 244-248; Sharp, II, 312-323; Stout, pp 30-32, Thomas W. Talley, Negto Fol- Rhymes (New York, 1922), pp. 190-195, and Newman White, American Negro Fol\ Songs (Cambridge, 1928), p. 218. See also Lomax and Lomax, pp 310-313. Version A was sung in 1935 by Mrs Charles Muchler, Kalkaska; as a child she learned the song from an older sister.
	A 1 There was a frog lived in a well, O little away O!