The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren

by Iona Opie, Peter Opie, Marina Warner (Introduction)

First published in 1959, Iona and Peter Opie's The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is a pathbreaking work of scholarship that is also a splendid and enduring work of literature. Going outside the nursery, with its assortment of parent-approved entertainments, to observe and investigate the day-to-day creative intelligence and activities of children, the Opies bring to life the rites and rhymes, jokes and jeers, laws, games, and secret spells of what has been called "the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no signs of dying out."

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Folklore, Anthropology, Language, Linguistics, Sociology

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Iona Margaret Balfour Archibald was born in Colchester, Essex, England. She was a researcher and writer on folklore and children's street culture. She is considered an authority on children's rhymes, street and playground games and the Mother Goose tradition. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1998 and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999.

The couple met during World War II and married on 2 September 1943. The couple worked together closely, from their home near Farnham, Surrey, conducting primary fieldwork, library research, and interviews of thousands of children. In pursuing the folklore of contemporary childhood they directly recorded rhymes and games in real time as they were being sung, chanted, or played. Working from their home in Alton, Hampshire they collaborated on several celebrated books and produced over 30 works. The couple were jointly awarded the Coote Lake Medal in 1960. The medal is awarded by The Folklore Society "for outstanding research and scholarship".

Speaking in 2010, Iona speaks of working with her husband as being "like two of us in a very small boat and each had an oar and we were trying to row across the Atlantic." and that "[W]e would never discuss ideas verbally except very late at night."

Iona Opie died in 2017.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant]

I did some anthropological field work a few years ago right in my own house. My daughter Georgia (then aged 9) and her friend Megan were there and they were in the garden doing some complicated clapping rhymes. I got them to tell me what the words were and I wrote down a few of them just like folk song collector would, so here are my favourites (I wonder if the Opies would immediately recognise them). So these are chanted in unison, not sung, whilst performing various stylised clapping and hand movements. To my great horror, they're all about sex, I think :

1)

Eeny meeny destameeny
You are the one for me
Education operation, I like you
Down down down baby
Down by the rollercoaster
Sweet sweet cherry
No place to go
Saw you with your boyfriend
Naughty naughty
Steal some candy
Greedy greedy
Went to school
Got told off
Shh shh shh shh
Bubbles Bubbles
Dirty Dirty, got to get clean
Spotty dotty, you are a dog

2) Apple stickey makes me icky
Makes my heart go 2-4-60
Not because you're dirty
Not because you're clean
Not because you're (make kissing sound)
Behind the magazine
Here comes Susan
With her skirt up tight
She can walk she can talk
She can do what she likes
I bet she can do it with her eyes shut tight

3) We are the London girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear our dungarees
Down to our sexy knees
There's just a boy next door
He put me on the floor
We did it sixty times
And he asked for more
My mother was surprised
To see my belly rise
My daddy jumped for joy
It was a baby boy
It was a horrid thing
We chucked it in the bin
My mother took it out
And shook it all about

[My God, don't let your mother hear that one!:]

This is one of the last remaining genuine oral traditions. Georgia and Megan got this stuff form other kids, and this is exactly the way folk songs used to be transmitted. Which people now get from records. Generations of kids pass on these rhymes with no adult intervention at all. I have a tape of recordings from the BBC archive (the South African Wellington Boot Dance, a quintet of nose-flutes from Java, that kind of thing) and there's a couple of English girls recorded in 1956 doing one of these clapping rhymes - and blow me down, they chant "Not because you're dirty, not because you're clean" too (the rest of it is different). Even in these days of X Boxes and Harry Potter and chatrooms, kids have their own indestructible culture. The boys don't do this clapping chanting thing of course, which lends weight to the idea that the transmission of the great Child ballads was a female thing, not a male thing (& hence for interior, private performance, amongst other women whilst working, perhaps - as opposed to a masculine performance for an audience - anyway that's a whole other theory).

Keen students of pop music will remember that once in 1965 one of these chants got into the American charts :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yrt3P...

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful record of children's play, rhymes, customs and folklore. I'm so glad I bought this, it's the sort of book to go back to. Iona and Peter Opie collected information for eight years from 5,000 children in England, Wales and Scotland. Playground games, rhymes, chants, customs, language, superstitions and beliefs.

When I was at a poor inner city state school 40 years ago, break times were wonderful. I loved the the games with their own language and rules, the songs, the skipping games and the customs. It was so interesting reading about all the variations across the country and remembering words, songs and games I'd forgotten. It was interesting to see the words used in your area and how they aren't necessarily the ones you know. There is a general index, an index of first lines and a geographical index. Coming from East Anglia it was interesting to see ladybirds referred to as bishy-barnabees and the rhyme, ladybird, ladybird fly away home. A chapter on not standing on pavement cracks reminded me of a regularly used rhyme- if you stand on a crack, you'll marry a bat, and a beetle will come to your wedding, I remember this chanted many times whilst trying to walk along the pavement avoiding cracks. The section on the children's calendar was my favourite. For me the high point of the primary school year was dancing around the maypole. The sense of coming spring and the excitement of the dancing was probably my favourite childhood memory. The music and the way the ribbons had plaited around the pole was magical. Sadly I don't know of any school now that continues this custom. I took my children to a 1st of May Maypole dance when they were younger and it was a wonderful day and a special memory, I think it's so sad these wonderful customs are lost. All souls day is mentioned, which has always been another favourite of ours, we love the idea that on this night the souls of the people who once lived in a house can come back to visit. We bake soul cakes which this book says has gone out of fashion. We recognised the magpie rhyme of one for sorrow, two for joy. Most of all I loved looking back to an era where children played out on the street, made up their own games and rules and experienced imaginative outdoor play, using their own language, customs, regional dialect and folklore.

[Chelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read my book reviews you’re probably going to get some odd ones in here. I’m interesting like that.

This book caught my eye…. No, actually it found me, walking past the shelves that are never looked at in the library, the ones I past while walking from the computers in the back, the ones that people only use when the main ones are full. Don’t ask me why I pulled it off the shelves, but upon flipping through it I knew that if I didn’t check it out I’d end up being late for class, and I am the type who goes to class.

Not many college students would be interested in a married couples 1959 study of schoolchildren’s habits, but I have odd fascinations from time to time. At nine it was Titanic. Twelve, the Romanovs. Fourteen, Harry Potter.

So I checked it out. And in it found variants, I kid you not, of every rhyme and superstition I knew as a kid. Some were noted as coming from the US, but others were widely known all over the English speaking world.

And tonight? There it was, the rhyme my grandma had told me, to my delight, over and over as a child: “What’s your name?” I’d ask, persistantly? “Pudding-and-tame, ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”

It’s weird, but fascinating, to know what you share with other children from centuries past. And I, who am in a weird phase between child and adult, found this book a fascinating rumination on the nature of the child.

It’s out of print, but if it ever calls to you from a shelf, give it a whirl!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The following terms of endearment have been supplied by 13-year-old: Ducky duck, my darling love, fruity sweetie, honey bun, honey bunch, and sweetie pie. The term 'B.G.' (Best Girl), popular in the thirties, seems to have become dated, and has been replaced by 'G.F.' (Girl Friend). 'G.P.' (Grand Passion) is usually reserved for hero-sweethearts, such as film stars and sports celebrities, thus they say 'Gregory Peck is my G.P.'

It is fashionable to have a 'crush' on or a 'pash' for somebody. 'He's my pash', i.e. the one they are passionate about; while 'crush' is popularly supposed to convey the idea of someone to whom they would like to be crushed close."

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent hours poring over this book as a child. Childhood was acknowledged and granted the importance it was due. I felt part of a stream of generations, spread far and wide, learning and passing on secrets and a way of life from one generation to the next.

[Elizabeth Penrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could read this book with an interest in the history of England, child psychology, business, or social structures . . . or simply for its humor and humanity.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son is an artist and an art teacher, and one of his favourite artists is Pieter Brueghel the Elder. We both love the painting entitled Children’s Games, and much enjoy identifying the different activities.

When I worked at a large girls’ school which boasted an excellent library, I was known by the librarians for checking out the weighty tomes which, more often than not, no pupil or indeed teacher had ever borrowed. One such book was the acclaimed study by Iona & Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, which took me weeks to plough through, but not without reward! One of the things that interested me was their conclusion that the learning of games in the main by-passes adults: it is mostly children who communicate and pass them on to other children.

When I was a girl, it was fashionable to hold seances, and I remember the time I set up a circle of letters round a glass in my older sister’s bedroom (most of the family were out), and I and two cousins began to summon the spirits. As the glass started to move we rose as one and fled screaming from the room! Later in life I met a 1960s alumna of above school who recalled the time when a seance had been organised in one of the dormitories.

“Is there anybody there?” was asked.

At this, the glass began to move, and after affirming that there was, spelt out the word F-I-R-E. Seconds later, the school fire-bell went off, and it transpired that at that moment a fire had been discovered in the Domestic Science block, formerly the great house’s stables. Needless to say, the girls were terrified, and the story spread round the school rapidly. The Bishop of Dover was summoned by the Headmistress and spoke at Assembly the following Sunday on the evils of tampering with the dark arts of the Ungodly.

Reading Pepys’ Diary, I was delighted to come across a mention of a lunch-time game we played at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School in the late 1960s/early 1970s, which was clearly being played by children at least 400 years earlier. I recall six of us standing around another girl, who lay on a table in the empty art room. We went round the circle, ceremoniously uttering in turn the words:

“She looks pale.” This was followed, one line at a time, and each reciting by rote, by the following:

“She is pale.”

“She looks ill.”

“She is ill.”

“She looks dead.”

“She is dead.”

And with this, we each slipped one forefinger under the prone girl and, together, lifted her several feet in the air with seemingly no effort at all, as if she was weightless. We had no idea how it worked, but it did work, and it afforded us great satisfaction!

So when I came across Pepys’ entry for 31 July 1665, I called out to my husband: “Listen to this!” (he had also, I knew, played the game at school):

This evening with Mr Brisband speaking of inchantments and spells, I telling him some of my Charmes, he told me this of his own knowledge at Bourdeaux in France. The words these:

Voicy un Corps mort
Royde comme un Baston
Froid comme Marbre
Leger comme un Esprit
Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ.

He saw four little Girles, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them upon one knee; and one begin the first line, whispering in the care of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through. And putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead. At the end of the words they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach. And he being there and wondering at it (as also being afeared to see it - for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words in the room of one of the little girls, that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words), did, for fear there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, called the cook of the house, as Sir G. Carteret’s Cooke, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner.

Fascinating, eh? Love to hear from any of you with your experiences and stories about children’s games - comments welcome!

[Larissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book found its way onto my "To Read" list by way of the podcast A Way With Words, where it has been credited with informing the hosts of so many fascinating nuggets from language history that I couldn't resist finding a copy and digging in deeper.

One of the first points to make an impression on me was the speed of cultural transmission observed (pp. 5-7), even in the earliest days of global communication, especially since children are largely limited (and drawn) to oral tradition. It made me curious to read the work of contemporary folklorists, especially regarding the impact of present day technology. Writers like Taylor Lorenz and others on the social media beat do a great job of covering teens and preteens, but I'd love to hear about the rapid evolutionary cycles of younger school-age children's lore.

I'd also love to read a similar work from a more local scholar. Half the pleasure came from the unsurprising and yet consistently thrilling unveiling of yet more evidence that human life is marked by patterns of shared experience. Kind of a stuffier version of seeing a relatable meme about everyone somehow learning how to draw the "cool S."

Reading this book cover to cover is a little like reading an encyclopedia for fun, but if you're interested in this subject then it remains captivating throughout. And if you're at all in need of convincing about the merits of such a collection, the lengthy introduction by Marina Werner captures them nicely. Iona and Peter Opie's findings are charming in the ways that children's traditions almost inherently are, but Werner is right to call this anthology unsentimental, and the Opies are right to portray their subjects that way. Children deserve to be captured as they are; it's condescending to clean them up and pretend otherwise.

To that end, the most unfortunate and difficult to read sections of the book are those that touch on racist language and activity. It's not just the reality of it that's upsetting (though that is, too), it's also the lack of negative framing on the part of the authors (see pp. 13, 85-86, 178, 220-221, 349, and pretty much the entire Children's Calendar chapter, where it seems every holiday involves blackface, among other examples). Beyond neutral replication of these items, the Opies are guilty of including a particularly disgusting anti-Indigenous analogy where they compare children's development to that of "savages" (pp. 2 and 210).

Nonetheless, this book is absolutely packed to the gills with fun facts and I can't resist including several of my favourites, among other stray observations:

- Nothing like a casual reference to "the 90s" meaning the 1890s (p. 5)
- Did you know that the term to blow a raspberry comes from Cockney rhyming slang? Fart --> raspberry tart --> imitative fart noise = raspberry (p. 8-9)
- Replying to "How old are you?" with "As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth" is a hilarious bit of cheek (p. 42)
- "I see London, I see France // I see [someone]'s underpants" is at least as old as 1887! (p. 47)
- Kind of wild and definitely sinister that Disney essentially planted a false cultural moment around Davy Crockett to promote an upcoming movie (1956's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier), and interesting that only the songs and rhymes really survived.
- I love the theme of Chapter 8: Code of Oral Legislation. It really feels, while you're doing it, like being a kid is all about learning these rules and adapting as fluidly as they do.
- Great quote: "Childhood is on nodding terms with the supernatural" (p. 122)
- "Wizard" used to be an approval word, apparently used in the same way as super, bang on, snazzy, and luscious (p. 161), and was still popular at the time of writing in 1959
- Post haste comes from telling postal staff that they needed to send a letter hastily? And was often communicated under threat of death by drawing gallows on an envelope?? People are so weird oml (p. 236)
- A 9-year-old boy casually described to the authors an April Fool's Day joke about convincing his brother there was to be a round of social distancing for a new disease (p. 244). Short historic memories we've had for that concept
- I'm reminded by the milk bottle top collection described on p. 307 of the extensively detailed playground rumour around my elementary school that certain milk containers were highly valuable, with an intricate system based on the little coloured squares on the packaging that determined a given carton's worth. (The reality of the squares is far less exciting.)
- The authors (a married couple) testing out onomancy compatibility checks on themselves was very charming (p. 337)
- The double door-knocking trick where two knockers across the way are tied together with a stone weighing down the line, ready to set of a chain of apparent ding-dong-ditches, is frankly genius (p. 388)
- The whole experience of reading this book made me especially nostalgic for summer camp, the place where many of these songs and phrases and especially games were passed on both to and by me, I suspect largely on account of the amount of time spent entertaining ourselves with no adults and limited structure. I'm sad for the children who will be missing that special place this summer

[Temaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been wanting to read this book for years, and this coloured my reading experience. b The authors did not appear to be quite sure whether they wanted to write a discursive anthro text about the tribes and customs of children in Britain, or a careful, fully cited field report. Thismakes for a cluttered read, sometimes swamped with details and authorities,sometimes making a wseeping statement with no backgroundinformation.

It's a fascinating book nonetheless. The authors have mostly gone for describing and comparing to other texts to look at transmission over time and distance. The histories of some terms are startlingly lengthy; others are incredibly brief. Mostly I enjoyed it for comparing my own childhood memories from a school in Buckinghamshire in the seventies and eighties, and seeing the variations and changes -- and similarities. Some of the traditions they talk about I was passed on by my grandfather, some from uncles and aunts, most from that osmotic play ground life that seems so much time as a child, and really was at most an hour and a half each day.

Definitely an interesting read, and while I am not wholly convinced by some of the conclusions they draw about the societal rules underpinning some of the traditions still well worth the time to read it. I would have been more impressed if the writing style wasn't so patchy.

[David Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book traces slang, game rules, social conventions, superstitions, rhymes, and jokes of schoolchildren in the British isles across generations, making observations as to how this remarkably stable and fertile memetic ecosystem behaves.

[Anne Flood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real gem, and (truth be told) a trip down memory lane (even though the last info was gathered before I was born, but many were still current by time I was at school). School age children giving information on names they use for authority figures, rhymes used for skipping, clapping and ball games, pranks and tricks, and how to deal with bullies! Lots of games, rhymes etc have existed for centuries (but the children are convinced they were the first to make them up), and many others have spread the length and breadth of the country, which could be regarded as surprising given no internet, few home telephones, and how little frequent travel was undertaken. Loved it!

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iona and Peter Opie, folklorists, studied the private world of British schoolchildren, learning the rhymes, games, stories and culture passed on from children to each, not learned from adults. Published in 1959, the rhymes and games go back in history to the 1600’s, a unique oral history that is full of memories, such fun to read. This is a goldmine, an absolute treasure of childhood.

[Ceri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massive classic, I found it impossible to read all at once. If I owned it, I'd dip in and out. It was very interesting and as I was born in the 60s I know how important playground rhymes and stories were but I wonder if things are still the same. I've worked in schools and barely any children could skip with a rope and I didn't see many traditional play time games played.

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I applaud the idea of treating children like a native tribe or a foreign country (i.e., anthropologically) and analyzing their customs and culture -- I have five small children and I can vouch for the fact that they really are almost an entirely different type of human being altogether, vs. teenagers/adults -- but Opie carries out the task in a quite boring, uninteresting way.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating!

[Dr Susan Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendid evocation of memories of childhood and how the ditties thatchildrenthrough time havebeen passed into language and spread around the world.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN is one of two books I found about out while doing late-night Wikipedia searches on a random rhyme I remembered from when I was a kid. Being a lover of history (and also fond of childhood), I couldn't pass this up. While this was written even before my dad, I found that I recognized a good deal of the rhymes and superstitions detailed inside. My favorite parts were the first several chapters, which dealt with the kinds of juvenile rhymes I was looking for, as well as various jokes, riddles, and the like. And, despite focusing almost exclusively on British schoolchildren's customs, there were occasional references to similar American traditions. My only quibble with the book is that, as far as entertainment value goes (my primary reason for buying this in the first place), it was a bit front-loaded. Once it started getting into specific traditions/customs that I was largely unfamiliar with (and holidays I hadn't even heard of) I started skimming instead of reading thoroughly. Still, I doubt there is a more entertaining anthropological study out there, at least on this subject. Highly recommended for passive reading or research.

[Cynthisa]

What's so fascinating about this topic is that it is TRANSMITTED culture. That is, culture passed from child to child, rather than from one's parents, family, religion, etc. This type of tradition occurs strongly in American Deaf communities too. (Because most deaf children are born into hearing families, the child isn't exposed to Deaf culture until going off to a resident school for the deaf.) The major emphasis on "mainstreaming" deaf kids into hearing classrooms has lead to an erosion of Deaf enculturation, as had the spread of email and texting. Anyhow, I'm sad to hear that these chants are disappearing from schoolchildren's traditions. Probably replaced by obsessions with Tomagochis, MP3s and now who-knows-what electronic entertainments. How tragic. I'm going to make sure I teach my neices what chants I remember. (Including "Miss Mary Mack"!) Hopefully delay their loss entirely a wee bit longer....

[Ed Skoog]

In the 1950s, folkorists Iona & Peter Opie listened to the songs and chants of the playgrounds of Great Britain, and compiled them in an indispensable study recently re-issued by the equally indispensable NYRB classics imprint (with an introduction by Maria Warner, whose Phantasmagoria is one of my favorite books of 2007). When I get too confused or excited by the arguments of and about contemporary poetry (great articles about which in the new PMLA), and need to find somewhere to start over at my own table, this is the sort of thing I reach for:


The sausage is a cunning bird

with feathers long and wavy.

It swims about the frying pan

and makes its nest in gravy.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found the book through an aunt who taught first grade. Oral traditions are fascinating & we too rarely investigate children's rich internal lives.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful snapshot of mostly British children's folklore, well researched. I especially love that little girls have been levitating folks ("Light as a feather; stiff as a board") since the 1600s.

[Garden Utensil · Rating 5 out of 5]

had to return to library!!!

should probably buy this book so I can use it as a reference for ever and ever and ever!!!

strikes me as the best possible teacher's tool

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

My professor for my Materials for Children class recommended this book during a discussion of children's poetry, and, extrapolating from that, jump rope rhymes and such. Despite its age, this book is a fascinating look at the culture of school aged children, and shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Opies mainly studied British children in the 1940s and 50s, but update some of the vernacular and these were jump rope rhymes or clapping games I recall as a public school child in 1980s and 90s New Jersey. Or weird superstitions. Pranks, while some remained physical, were centered a lot around telephones in our day (before everyone had caller ID, that is), but it was interesting to see so many similarities!