Collectanea. 451
Goat and Cows.
The following has been sent by a correspondent from Dorset : " I had often read and heard of the old superstition that a goat turned in with the cows that are in calf would prevent them from slipping calf, and I actually saw this in a field — a goat running with a lot of calves, and was told this was the usual practice to ward off the evil eye ! "
J. J. Foster.
Notes on English Folk-lore.
Derbyshire. — The Bedfordshire Nursery Rhymes, published in Vol. xxvi., p. 413 et seq., bring to my mind one that is obviously a variant of it, which I heard as a child in the small village of Turnditch in Derbyshire. We used to sing it to a simple tune :
1. This old man, he went one,
He went nick-nack on my thumb.
RefraiJi — Tommy nick-nack, nick-nack, sing a song. And this old man came toddling along.
2. This old man, he went two. He went nick-nack on my shoe.
3. This old man he went three. He went nick-nack on my knee.
4. This old man, he went four, He went nick-nack on my door.
5. This old man, he went five.
He went nick-nack on my beehive.
6. This old man, he went six.
He went nick-nack on my sticks.
7. This old man, he went seven,
He went nick-nack up to Heaven.
Presumably that was the end of him, for I don't remember that the rhyme went any further.
