Come, Butter, Come

DESCRIPTION: "Come, butter, come! De King and de Queen Is er-standin' at de gate, Er-waitin' for some butter An' a cake. Oh, come, butter, come!" A different version: "Come, butter come (x2), Peter stands at the gate, Waiting for a butter cake, Come, butter, come"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1656 (Ady's A Candle in the Dark, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: worksong nonballad food royalty food work children animal nonsense
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE) Britain(England)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs, p. 215, (no title) (1 short text); p. 287, (no title) (1 short text, from Brand's Antiquities)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 85, "Come, butter, come" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #491, p. 213, "(Come, butter, come)"
Ritchie-SingingFamilyOfTheCumberlands, pp. 23-24, "Churn, Churn, Make Some Butter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sackett/Koch-KansasFolklore, p. 126, "(Churn, butter, churn, Come, butter, come)" (1 short text)
Killion/Waller-ATreasuryOfGeorgiaFolklore, p. 230, "Churning Song" (1 short text)
ADDITIONAL: Roy Palmer, _The Folklore of Warwickshire_, Rowman and Littlefield, 1976, p. 87, (no title) (a 1-verse fragment that might be this or just possibly "Churn, Churn, Make Some Butter")
Jacqueline Simpson, _The Folklore of Sussex_, B. T. Batsford, 1973, p. 58, "(Come, butter, come!") (1 short text)
Roud #18167
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Snake Baked a Hoecake" (lyrics, some versions?)
NOTES [211 words]: The reference to Peter at the gate is sometimes interpreted as referring to Peter trying to get into heaven. But the logical assumption is surely that it is a reference to Acts chapter 12. Peter had been imprisoned by Herod Agrippa I, and was freed by an angel. He went to the home of Mary mother of John Mark, and knocked at the gate (12:13). The maid Rhoda was so shocked that she was very slow to answer.
Simpson, p. 58, says that this poem was used to invoke the aid of Dobbs, the helpful fairy/brownie. - RBW
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes: "Although this centuries-old charm was still in superstitious use at the time, it was set to music in 1798 as a 'Bagatelle for Juvenile Amusement.'" - BS
Earlier versions of the Index split Jean Ritchie's "Churn, Churn, Make Some Butter" into a separate piece. When the Sackett/Koch-KansasFolklore text turned up, I decided to lump all the butter churning rhymes here, although I suspect some are at least partly independent. I would add that Roud places some butter churning lyrics -- including one version of Jean Ritchie's text -- with #3622 ("Snake Baked a Hoecake"), although several of Ritchie's other texts are filed here with #18167. I guess, even in song titles, butter doesn't always come easily. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: ScNF215B

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