Handy Dandy (Handy Pandy, Andy Pany, Amos and Andy)

DESCRIPTION: "Handy dandy, Sugary candy, Which will you have, (High or low/Top or bottom)." Or, "Andy pandy, sugary candy, French almond nuts," or "Amos and Andy and all stock candy, When you lick it, you are dandy."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1894 (Gomme)
KEYWORDS: playparty food
FOUND IN: Britain New Zealand US(So) Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Sutton-Smith-NZ-GamesOfNewZealandChilden/FolkgamesOfChildren, p. 101, "(Andy pandy, sugary candy)," "(Ansy, pansy, sugary candy)" (2 texts)
Solomon-ZickaryZan, p. 77, "Amos and Andy" (1 text)
Withers-EenieMeenieMinieMo, p. 21, "(Andy, Mandy)" (1 text)
Brady-AllInAllIn, p. 87, "(Handy Andy sugary candy)" (1 text)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #10, "Amos and Andy, sugar and candy" (1 text)
Roud #19429
NOTES [273 words]: The incredible Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 203, has a version of this which runs, "Handy Spandy, Jack-a-Dandy, Loved plum cake and sugar candy, He bought some at a Grocer's shop, Then out he came, hop, hop, hop!" Thomas, whose connection to reality was so remote that I doubt she could even see it from where she stood, claims the plum cake is Spain and the verse is about James VI and I's love for that country. Hey, I don't make up her delusions....
"Handy Dandy" itself is said to be a game in which something -- candy, say -- is held cupped in both hands of one player, which may then be shaken, and the two hands separated so that the candy is hidden in one hand. The other player has to guess which hand holds the candy/prize.
This game is so old that it is possible that it is mentioned in Langland's Piers Plowman of the late fourteenth century. Passus IV, line 75 in the B text reads "To maken his pees with his pens, handy-dandy payed" (Langland/Schmidt, p. 56), which E. Talbot Donaldson modernized as "To make his peace with his pennies, paid out handy-dandy" (Langland/Donaldson, p. 35) -- which I think means bribery involving secrecy or trickery (so explicitly the note in Langland/Pearsall).
In the "C" text of some years later, the passus is rearranged; the line is changed to "And for to here helpe handy-dandy paid" ("And to have their[? -- it refers to Wrong, or to Wrong and Wisdom] help paid handy-dandy.)" This is line 68 of passus IV in the C text (Langland/Pearsall, p 91). The line is changed, but the point is definitely the same. - RBW
Bibliography

Langland/Donaldson, William Langland, Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation by E. Talbot Donaldson, edited, introduced, and annotated by Elizabeth D. Kirk and Judith H. Anderson, W. W. Norton, 1990
Langland/Pearsall, William Langland, Piers Plowman: The C-text, edited by Derek Pearsall, 1978; corrected edition, University of Exeter Press, 1994
Langland/Schmidt: A. V. C. Schmidt, editor, William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text Based on Trinity College Cambridge MS. B.15.17, 1978; I use the updated Everyman 1995 paperback edition

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File: SuSm101A

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