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282 JENNY JONES
I'll gie ye a peck o' gowd, A peck o' gowd, a peck o' gowd, I'll gie ye a peck o' gowd, For Janet, my jo.
The matron gives him a rebuff as before, and he again retires discomfited, and again enters, singing an offer of " twa pecks o' gowd," which, however, is also refused. At his next entry he offers " three pecks o* gowd," at which the good wife brightens up and sings—
Come ben beside Janet jo, Janet jo, Janet jo, Ye're welcome to Janet jo, Janet, my jo.
The suitor then advances gaily to his sweetheart, and the affair ends in a scramble for kisses.—Popular Rhymes, pp. 141, 142.
On the other hand, it must not be overlooked that this game-drama and the game of " Janet Jo " have no connection beyond the name of the heroine and the wooing incident; so that the borrowing, if borrowing there be, might have been by Scotland, who improved the commonplace "Jenny Jones" into the pretty sweetness of her Scottish namesake. The Scottish version of the game leaves out the question of the colours for mourning, but, on the other hand, it contains the very important incident of the restoration of the dead. Chambers (Popular Rhymes, p. 141) suggests that this incident was introduced for the purpose of beginning the game again, but this seems extremely doubtful, in consideration of the Liphook variant, in which Miss Fowler says, " It is no uncommon thing for (Jenny Jones' to be swung into life again;" and the still more significant Southampton version, where " ' Jenny Jones ' appears in the character of the Ghost, and scatters and pursues the surrounding mourners." This detail is also used by the Northants and Barnes children, the version of whose game is very like the Southampton one. On the whole, the analysis would suggest that there has been a game played by the children of both England and Scotland, the leading incidents of |
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