The North Wind Doth Blow
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the robin do then,
Poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn,
To keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing,
Poor thing.
Commentary
One of the several nursery rhymes I learnt at my mother’s knee (hi mum!). This one has always been one of my favourites, possibly helped by the wonderful illustrations that accompanied it in a number of children’s poetry books. Like many other nursery rhymes, this one has an associated tune - as much chanted as sung, as is also typical of the genre, and rather dolorous, as befits the poem.
Note: It practically goes without saying that there are several minor variants of the poem, with no one version laying claim to definitiveness. This is merely the wording I like best.
On Mother Goose:
fictitious old woman, reputedly the source of the body of traditional children’s songs and verses known as nursery rhymes. She is often pictured as a beak-nosed, sharp-chinned elderly woman riding on the back of a flying gander. “Mother Goose” was first associated with nursery rhymes in an early collection of “the most celebrated Songs and Lullabies of old British nurses,” Mother Goose’s Melody; or Sonnets for the Cradle (1781), published by the successors of one of the first publishers of children’s books, John Newbery. The oldest extant copy dates from 1791, but it is thought that an edition appeared, or was planned, as early as 1765, and it is likely that it was edited by Oliver Goldsmith, who may also have composed some of the verses. The Newbery firm seems to have derived the name “Mother Goose” from the title of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697; “Tales of Mother Goose”), a French folk expression roughly equivalent to “old wives’ tales.”
The persistent legend that Mother Goose was an actual Boston woman, Elizabeth Goose (Vergoose, or Vertigoose), whose grave in Boston’s Old Granary Burying Ground is still a tourist attraction, is false. No evidence of the book of rhymes she supposedly wrote in 1719 has ever been found. The first U.S. edition of Mother Goose rhymes was a reprint of the Newbery edition published by Isaiah Thomas in 1785.
– EB
Links
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes.html has a large collection of nursery rhymes
I’d hoped to list a site that explained the stories behind some of the nursery rhymes, but was unable to find one I liked. Suggestions welcomed.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature on Nursery Rhymes
http://www.bartleby.com/221/1610.html
— Martin
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Norman Page · 24 December 2000
Re your Christmas Day poem, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. Iona and Peter Opie, Oxford, 1951, is a mine of information. The one you give contains no particular historical allusions, of course, but rhymes like Mary, Mary, quite contrary and Humpty Dumpty are another kettle of fish!
Norman Page
Ylfnogard614 · 24 December 2000
Thanks for the memories.
Happy Holidays!
Stephen Elliott · 19 June 2002
I’m looking for some Mother Goose nursery rhymes written in French. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Steve Elliott
acroanb · 5 December 2003
When the north wind doth blow as it is blowing now, my mind goes back many years to this little poem. I think I learned a lesson in compassion for God’s little feathered creatures from this poem.,
Glyn Nicholas · 10 October 2005
Hi!
I was glad to find this little poem on your web page when I looked it up this morning. With winter on its inexorable way, these lines have been in my head, but I couldn’t recall the beginning of the second verse. My father used to recite this to me when I was a young child in Cornwall, England, eighty years ago, but he always said, “What will Robin do then, poor thing?”. This gave everything much more pathos and Robin the endearing character of a familiar friend, rather than the more abstract nature implied by ‘the’. I didn’t know this was from Mother Goose. It would be interesting to check the original. Anyway, thank you.
Glyn
P.S. The English robin is much smaller and has, possibly, a larger place in the people’s heart and folklore than our larger American counterpart.
Linton Hall · 23 January 2006
Does anybody know the tune? My mother used to sing it but I can’t quite remember.
Gretchen Markin · 4 April 2006
On this April morning, I awoke to about three inches of snow on the ground. It reminded me of long ago springs when I was little, I used to worry about the birds when we had a late snow like that. My grandfather would quote that little nursery rhyme to me. It comforted me to know that they could take shelter in the barn. I used to think it was just something he made up, he was a great storyteller. So I thought I would look it up this morning, just to see, and find out that it is in fact a nursery rhyme. It was nice to see, and also to know that he quoted it exactly as you wrote it.
RAYCBANDY · 17 February 2007
My introduction to Robin was in Kansas when I was a boy. One of my teachers recited only the first verse and it was up to us to decide his future. I’m glad to know he came to a comfortable end. Ray - rcbandy @ aol.com.
John Howard Wolf · 1 May 2007
You bring back memories from my kindergarten years 1941-43 in Philadelphia, Pa when we would sing this song, but not with ´the robin´ but ´poor birdy´, which fits the metrics better - from John Wolf, now in Portugal