Roger and Dolly (I)

DESCRIPTION: Roger taps Dolly's window; she won't let him in. He asks if he has a rival. She won't deny it. He starts to drown himself but, in the water, thinks better of it. Dolly wants Roger to return but he finds another lover. Dolly fears she will die an old maid.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1750 (Ramsay); 1886 (Halliwell: nursery rhyme version)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection farming
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 456, "Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's Window" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Allan Ramsay, The Tea-Table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs (in four vols) (London, 1750 (eleventh edition) ("Digitized by Google")), (Vol. IV,) pp. 370-372, "Roger's Courtship" ("Young Roger came tapping At Dolly's window") (1 text)
James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1886 ("Digitized by Google")), #471 p. 238, ("Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's window") (1 text)
Roud #19663
NOTES [26 words]: The nursery rhyme version is the first verse of Ramsay's: Roger taps Dolly's window; she won't let him in.
See "Roger and Dolly" (II) for a similar story. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: OO2456

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