North Wind Doth Blow, The

DESCRIPTION: "The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will poor robin do then? Poor thing! He'll hide in a barn, To keep himself warm, And hide his head under his wing. Poor thing!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1805 (Songs for the Nursery, according to the Opies)
KEYWORDS: storm bird
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 146, "The north wind doth blow" (1 text)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 227, "The North Wind Doth Blow" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 533, "The North Wind Doth Blow" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #407, p. 193, "(The north wind doth blow)"
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 168, "The North Wind Doth Blow" (1 text)
Roud #19525
NOTES [113 words]: Although the obvious assumption is that the "robin" of this song is the bird, the inevitable Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 155, converts it to a proper name, Robin, and says that Robin is Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favorite of Elizabeth I. It's worth noting that Thomas, apart from the fact that she had more hallucinations than a magic mushroom addict, assumes a whole constellation of nursery rhymes about Dudley, who probably wasn't considered worth that much attention outside Elizabeth's court.
Having watched birds huddle and hide in bad weather, I really do think this is about birds. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: OO2533

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