Whistle, Daughter, Whistle

DESCRIPTION: The mother offers her daughter a (cow) if she will whistle. The daughter says she cannot. The request is repeated with (sheep, etc.); each time the daughter refuses. Finally the mother offers a man; the daughter engages to whistle with all her might
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1868 (Notes & Queries); a manuscript copy said to be from 1740 was cited in _Folklore_ in 1901
KEYWORDS: dialog mother bargaining children
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,SE,So) Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber)) Ireland
REFERENCES (24 citations):
Randolph 109, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text plus 2 fragments, 2 tunes)
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 59, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 131, "Whisle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan7 1334, "Oh, Whistle, Whistle, Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 186, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text plus mention of 2 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 186, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol1, pp. 99-100, "Whistle, Daugther, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #221, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 98, "Whistle Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 107, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 134, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople 111, "Whistle Daughter Whistle" (1 text)
Chase-AmericanFolkTalesAndSongs, pp. 138-139, "Lolly Too Dum" (2 texts, 1 tune, with the first actually being this song)
Korson-PennsylvaniaSongsAndLegends, pp. 85-87, "Schpinn, schpinn (Spin, Spin)" (1 German text plus non-poetic English translation, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 128, "Whistle, daughter, whistle" (3 texts)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #34, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #255, p. 158, "(Whistle, daughter, whistle)"
Henry-SongsSungInTheSouthernAppalachians, pp. 219-220, "Spin, Meine Liebe Tochter" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 343, "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle" (1 text)
Tobitt-TheDittyBag, p. 135, "Spin, Spin" (1 text, 1 tune, a translation of the German rather than a native English text)
Tobitt-YoursForASong, p. 24, "Spin, Spin" (1 text, 1 tune, a translation of the German rather than a native English text)
Rodeheaver-SociabilitySongs, p. 44, "Whistle, Mary, Whistle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN1781, "Mother let me Marry, I long to be a Bride"
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 25, ("Whistle, whistle, auld wife")
ST R109 (Partial)
Roud #1570
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lazy Mary (She Won't Get Up)" (theme)
cf. "La Jeune Fille Sans Amant (The Young Girl Without a Lover)" (theme)
cf. "Sixteen Years, Mama" (subject)
cf. "The Maid's Complaint to her Mother" (theme)
NOTES [95 words]: This song has a close German parallel known, e.g., as "Spinn Spinn"; note that this was actually collected in Pennsyvania and printed in Henry. Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren also claims Flemish and French parallels. - RBW
In Chambers's text the conversation is not between a mother and daughter, though the outcome is the same. - BS
[Sharp reports of his version,] "The words given me by the singer were a little too free and unconventional to be published without emendation, but the necessary alterations have, nevertheless, been very few and unimportant." - PJS
Last updated in version 6.3
File: R109

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