Down in the Meadow (Down in the Valley II)

DESCRIPTION: Singing game/skipping rhyme "Down in the (meadow/valley) where the green grass grows," a girl shines like a rose (or hangs out her clothes). She and a young man court (and marry)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1894 (Gomme)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting jumprope | grass meadow counting
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(MA,MW,NE,Ro,SE,So) Ireland
REFERENCES (17 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1575, "Down in Yon Meadow" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Brady-AllInAllIn, pp. 91-92, "Down by the River" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 20, "Down by the Riverside" (6 texts, 1 tune)
Montgomerie/Montgomerie-ScottishNurseryRhymes 59, "Skipping (Down in the Valley)" (1 text)
Behan-IrelandSings, #25, "Down in Yonder Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune, modified)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #126, "Down in the Valley Where the Green Grass Grows" (1 text)
Carey-MarylandFolkloreAndFolklife, p. 78, "(no title)" (1 text)
Byington/Goldstein-TwoPennyBallads, p. 116, "(no title, filed under "Rope Jumping")" (1 text)
Solomon-ZickaryZan, p. 55, "Down in the Meadow" (1 text)
Ainsworth-JumpRopeVerses, #8, "(Down in the meadow)"; #21, "(Down in the meadow)"; #52, "(Down in the meadow)"; #67, "(Down in the valley Where the green grass grows)"; #73, "(Down in the valley where the green grass grows)"; #82, "(Down in them meadow where the green grass grows)"; #104, "(Down by the river Where the green grass grows)"; #145, "(Down by the meadow where the green grass grows)" (8 texts)
Delamar-ChildrensCountingOutRhymes, p. 127, "Down in the meadow where the green grass grows"; "Down in the valley where the green grass grows" (2 texts, the latter probably a deliberate parody)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #115, "Down by the river (in the meadow, valley)" (1 text); #119, "DOwn in the valley where the geen grass grows" (1 text)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, (Joan McCaskill, collector), "Rope-Skipping Games", Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jun 1948), p. 12, "(Down in the Meadow)" (1 text)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, Teri John, "A Collection of Jump Rope Rhymes," Vol. XXI, No. 1 (Apr 1973), p. 16, "(Down by the river where the green grass grows" (1 text)
MidwestFolklore, Vance Randolph, "Jump Rope Rhymes From Arkansas" Volume 3, Number 2 (Summer 1953), p. 77, "(Down in the valley where the grass grows green)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Richard M. Dorson, _Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States_, University of Chicago Press, 1964, p. 386, "(no title)" (1 short text)
Tristram P. Coffin and Hennig Cohen, _Folklore in America: Tales, Songs, Superstitions, Proverbs, Riddles, Games, Folk Drama and Folk Festivals_, Doubleday, 1966, p. 189, "A Political Jump Rope Rhyme" (1 text, with references to Kennedy and Nixon rather than courting, collected 1960)
Roud #12967
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Down in the Desert" (parody of this)
NOTES [130 words]: Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame: "Although the precise source ... may never be known, the words probably stem from an Arcadian song such as 'The Wars are all O'er', which appears on a slip sheet in our possession printed in the 1770's." See "I Wish the Wars Were All Over." - BS
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes prints two versions of this. His #115 is an entirely typical version of this extremely common rhyme (surely one of the ten most popular jump rope rhymes). #119 is, shall we say, for an older group of participants:
Down in the valley where the green grass grows,
There sat little (girl's name) without any clothes.
A boy wanders by "and out it came"; she ends up pregnant. Abrahams calls this "a common bawdy rhyme" -- but he cites only one Texas version which he himself collected. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: SNR059

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography