Gentle John

DESCRIPTION: "A virgin goes a maying" gathering flowers "growing in my lady's garden." A misstep and "Gentle John will make you cry" or "Give you a kiss" [counting in a player who selects a mate] The mate "is none of ours," is in the player's power: make a wedding.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Halliwell)
KEYWORDS: courting playparty
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 28, "Gentle John" (2 texts)
ADDITIONAL: James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1842 ("Digitized by Google")), #219 pp. 123-124, ("Ring me (1), ring me (2), ring me rary(3") (1 text)
James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1843 ("Digitized by Google")), #244 p. 151, ("Ring me (1), ring me (2), ring me rary(3")); #245 p. 152, ("As I go round ring by ring") (2 texts)
Roud #21146
NOTES [34 words]: One of the Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame texts, though beginning "All around the mulberry bush, Boys and girls together," does belong here: "if by chance your foot should slip, Uncle Joe will give you a kiss." - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: OpGa028

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