Old Man's Three Sons (Jeffery, James, and John)

DESCRIPTION: "There was an old (wo)man had three sons, (Jerry) and James and John. Jerry was hung, and James was drowned, John was lost and never found, And there was the end of (her) three sons, Jerry and James and John."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1632 (Choice of Inventions, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: mother father children death drowning
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 540, "There was an old woman had three sons" (3 texts)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #262, p. 160, "(There was an old woman had three sons)"
Flanders/Ballard/Brown/Barry-NewGreenMountainSongster, pp. 125-127, "Jiffery, James, and John" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Roud #4661
NOTES [50 words]: Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes: "This is the first of fourteen verses in The Old Woman and Her Three Sons, a toy book with coloured illustrations published by John Harris in 1815. It is a verse which was certainly current in the reign of Charles I, and may go back to Elizabeth's time." - BS
Last updated in version 3.0
File: BGNG262

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