Little Sir Echo

DESCRIPTION: "Little Sir Echo, how do you do? Hello (Hello) Hello (Hello), Little Sir Echo, will answer you Hello (Hello) Hello (Hello).... Won’t you come over and play? You’re a nice little fellow... But you’re always so far away." Other verses may ask why Echo hides
AUTHOR: Words: J. S. Fearis / Music Laura R(ountree) Smith and Joe Marala (source: Gardner, _Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I)
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (copyright(
KEYWORDS: dialog nonballad campsong
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 309, 441, 466, "Little Sir Echo" (notes only)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings, p. 62, "Little Sir Echo" (1 text, 1 tune)
National-4HClubSongBook, p. 17, "Little Sir Echo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #25655
NOTES [251 words]: Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 444, estimates that this was the eighth most popular song in America in 1939, peaking at #2 in May 1939 (#1 for the year being the "Beer Barrel Polka").
There are multiple Greek stories to explain Echo (Ηχω) came to repeat back what was said to her, which perhaps have been combined in our recent sources. Echo was a nymph (i.e. female; she should have been Lady Echo, or Dame Echo, or Miss Echo, not Sir Echo).
One account (Grant/Hazel, pp. 124-125) has it that, when Hera was spying on Zeus in one or another of his flings, Echo turned up and chattered away, giving away Hera's trap. So Hera ordained that Echo could only speak when spoken to, and could only repeat what was said to her. In another account (perhaps after that), Echo fell in love with Narcissus, who ignored her, so she faded away, leaving only her voice to echo what was said to her. The latter part of the tale is the one I always heard. Both these parts are known primarily from Book III of Ovid's Metamorphoses, pp. 83-84 in the edition of Ovid cited here.
The other version (Grimal, p. 134) has Pan fall in love with her, but when she rejected him, Pan drove some shepherds mad and had them kill her. This story is apparently from the writer Longus, making it more recent than Ovid's version. It obviously explains why she cannot be seen but not why she can only repeat what she hears. - RBW
Bibliography

Grant/Hazel: Michael Grant and John Hazel, Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology: A Dictionary, 1979; I use the 1985 Dorset Press edition
Grimal: Pierre Grimal, The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology, 1951; translated 1986; edited by Stephen Kershaw from the translation of A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop, 1990; published with this title by Penguin in 1991
Ovid: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses, translated by Mary M. Innes, Penguin Books, 1955 (I use the 1983 reprint)

Last updated in version 6.5
File: ACSF309L

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography