Lady of the Land (Here's a Poor Widow)

DESCRIPTION: "Here comes a poor (woman/widow) from (Babylon/baby-land/Sandy Land), WIth three small children in her hand. One can brew, the other can bake, The other can make a pretty round cake.... Pray, ma'am, will you take one in?"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Halliwell)
KEYWORDS: cook children poverty playparty
FOUND IN: Britain(England,Scotland) Ireland US(MA) West Indies(Jamaica)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1598, "The Widow of Sandilands" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leyden-BelfastCityOfSong 19, "Here's a Poor Widow from Sandy Row" (1 text)
Brady-AllInAllIn, pp. 105-106, "The Old Woman from Sandy Land" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, pp. 77-78, "Here's an Old Woman from Sandy Land" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 16, "Widow from Babylon" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #641, p. 256, "(Here comes a poor woman from baby-land)"
Montgomerie/Montgomerie-ScottishNurseryRhymes 85, "(Here's a poor widow from Sandisland)" (1 text)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #8, "The Widow with Daughters to Marry" (2 texts plus excerpts); #185, "The Old Woman from Barbary" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1842 ("Digitized by Google")), #204 p. 116, ("Here comes a poor woman from baby-land") (1 fragment)
Martha Warren Beckwith and Helen Roberts, _Folk-Games of Jamaica_ (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1922 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")) #37 pp. 46-48, "Here Is a Lady from Barbaree" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #12975
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Now You Are Married I Wish You Joy" (one verse: "Now you are married I wish you well")
NOTES [160 words]: Halliwell's fragment is the verse "Here comes a poor woman from baby-land, With three small children in her hand: One can brew, the other can bake, The other can make a pretty round cake." He comments, "I believe the following is only a portion of a dialog, but I have not been able to recover it." - BS
I have a very strange suggestion, which may be completely irrelevant, but it looks as if this might be relative to a shanty. "On Shanties," article in E(neas) S(weetland) Dallas, editor, Once a Week, New Series, Number 31, August 1, 1868 (published by Bradbury and Evans and available on Google Books), p. 92, refers to a song "All you Ladies now on Land,"
Have you got, lady, a daughter so fine,
Slapandergosheka,
That is fit for a sailor that has crossed the line,
Slapandergosheka, etc.
Which sort of seems like a cross between this and "Mademoiselle from Armentières." I won't claim to be sure they're related, but I thought I would mention it. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: BGMG641

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