The leaves that hung but never grew

Here we come a-piping,
In Springtime and in May;
Green fruit a-ripening,
And Winter fled away.
The Queen she sits upon the strand,
Fair as lily, white as wand;
Seven billows on the sea,
Horses riding fast and free,
And bells beyond the sand.

Anon.

The earliest place I have been able to find this is Walter de la Mare’s anthology Come Hither (1923). He does not say where it comes from, and he may have collected it himself from oral tradition. So far as I can see, it is not to be found anywhere in the works of Iona and Peter Opie, the great collectors of children’s games and rhymes from the fifties to the seventies.

It is one of those stray traditional rhymes that tantalises with hints of hidden meaning: who is the Queen? why is she sitting on the strand? where are the horses riding? and what do the bells have to do with anything? Are they wedding-bells? Warning bells?

I question whether the two halves of the rhyme were originally connected. The first four lines seem to be intended for delivery as part of some folk-custom that probably involved going from house to house with music, in expectation of tips or food from the householders. ‘Green fruit a-ripening’ implies soft fruit, I think, and even so, suggests a time in late May, certainly not May Day, not in Britain. It may perhaps indicate that the original rhyme dates from before the point when Britain changed over from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, in 1752, when eleven days, 3rd–13th September, were simply dropped from the calendar. Since then, all fixed dates – Christmas, May Day etc – have all been eleven days later in the year’s cycle than they used to be. So, the may tree, or hawthorn, traditionally flowers in time for May Day: except that it rarely does. However, it is out in full bloom by about the 10th or 11th May. But I ramble. My point is that late May then would correspond to early June with us.

The last five lines sound to me like one of those rhymes found in some wonder tales, such as ‘The Red Etin of Ireland’ and ‘Childe Rowland’. In this case the story is lost beyond retrieval, except that it involved a Queen on a strand, apparently waiting for a ship … carrying whom?

The rhyme de la Mare printed shares some lines with the following rhyme, no. CLXXXIV, in J. O. Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of England (1841), in his section on ball-games.

Here we come a piping,
First in spring, and then in May,
The queen she sits upon the sand,
Fair as a lilly, white as a wand;
King John has sent you letters three,
And begs you’ll read them unto me;
We can’t read one, without them all,
So pray Miss Bridget deliver the ball!


tags: traditional rhyme

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