I Had a Little Horse Whose Name Was Jack
DESCRIPTION: "I had a little horse whose name was Jack, Put him in the stable and he jumped through the crack."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: horse
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 176, "I Had a Little Horse Whose Name Was Jack" (1 short text)
MidwestFolklore, W. L. McAtee, "Some Folklore of Grant County, Indiana, in the Nineties," Volume 1, Number 4 (WInter 1951), p. 258, "(I had a little horse)"; "(I had an old horse whose name was Bob)" (2 texts, from the same informant, so they may be the same item)
MidwestFolklore, Lucille S. Mitchell, "My School Days," Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1953), p. 172, "(Had a little mule and his name was Jack)"/"(Had a little dog, his name was rover" (2 fragments)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Had a Little Pony (I)"
cf. "I Had a Little Pony (II)" (lyrics)
cf. "I Had a Little Pony, His Name Was Dapple Grey" (lyrics)
NOTES [145 words]: The notes in Brown connect this with the English nursery rhyme, "I had a little pony, his name was Dapple Gray." This is possible -- but only that. - RBW
I don't see the connection either but Brown is refering to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 127, "I had a little pony" or--less likely--Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 223, "I had a little horse." [See also Montgomerie/Montgomerie-ScottishNurseryRhymes 12, 25, and especially Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #157, pp. 118-119, about dapple gray, and notes there. - RBW]
There seems a more complete version from Texas at the Real Live Preacher site in Finding the Man in the Picture Part One:
"I had a little dog, his name was Rover. He died all over except for his tail, and it turned over."
"I had a little mule, his name was Jack. I put him in the stable but he jumped through the crack." - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: Br3176
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