Dingle Dingle Doosey

DESCRIPTION: "Dingle, dingle, doosey, The cat's in the well; The dog's away to Bellingen, To buy the bairn a bell"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1810 (Ritson)
KEYWORDS: nonballad animal dog baby
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 175, "Round, Round Rosie" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 135, "Dingle dingle doosey" (2 texts)
ADDITIONAL: Joseph Ritson, Gammer Gurton's Garland (Glasgow, 1866 (reprinted from London, 1810 edition)), p. 47, ("Dingle, dingle, doosey") (1 text)
Roud #15524
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Ding, Dong, Bell" ("cat's in the well" lyric)
NOTES [109 words]: The current description is all of the Ritson text.
Ritson: "This is a Scottish ditty, on whirling round a piece of lighted paper to the child. The paper is called the dingle doosey." - BS
Despite this explanation, the incomparable Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, pp. 184-185, thinks this is about Mary Queen of Scots and her actions to assure Catholic baptism for her son!
I'm reminded, for obvious reasons, of "Ding, Dong, Bell" ("Ding, Dong, Bell, Pussy's in the well"). Both have a bell, and a cat in the well, and the syllable "Ding." But whether the link means anything I don't know.- RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: LyCr2175

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