Daffy-Down-Dilly

DESCRIPTION: Probably describing a daffodil: "Daffy-down-dilly is new come to town, With a yellow petticoat and a green gown."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1805 (Songs for the Nursery, according to Dolby-OrangesAndLemons)
KEYWORDS: flowers nonballad clothes
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 146, "Daffydowndilly" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 125, "Daffy-Down-Dilly" (1 text )
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #342, p. 183, "(Daffy-down-dilly is new come to town)"
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 64, "Daffy-Down-Dilly" (1 text)
Roud #19757
NOTES [60 words]: Although this is likely about a flower, and is first found more than a century and a half after the execution of King Charles I, the unique Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 216, combines this with "As I Was Going by Charing Cross," and claims that it was used to deride a status of Charles I. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: OO2125

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