A Childreris Game and the Lyke Wake. 275
3. The words of the dirge offer a difficulty. I remember the refrain : " um ha laid in his (or her) grave." These are found in a rhyme about the death of Robin Hood still recited at Sutton- in-Ashfield within the old limits of Sherwood Forest. But the rhyme does not contain the words about the worms quoted above. When I began this inquiry, an informant told me that his nurse used to recite to him when he was a child :
And from his eyes and mouth and chin
The worms crept out and the worms crept in.
And then grabbing the child's arm, she said, " And you'll be like that when you're dead." It was a comment upon the last case, that some twenty correspondents sent me various versions of a ballad about Death and the Gay Lady. All of these depended upon oral tradition except one which appeared in a volume published by E. F. Rimbault, Nursery Rhymes. Curiously enough, no other version exactly corresponds to Rimbault's. In fact, no two are exactly alike. The version that follows is probably the oldest. It was current at Oxford about a hundred years ago.
Thfere was a lady skin and bone,
Never was such a lady known.
This lady one fine summer's day
Went forth to church her prayers to say.
When she got to the churchyard gate, She sat her down and there did wait. When she got to the church door. She sat her down a little more.
When she got the church within
The bells did ring, the psalms did sing.
When she got into her pew,
She looked round and took her view.
She looked up, she looked down. And saw a dead man on the ground. And from his nose unto his chin They all crept out, they all crept in.
