The family reading hour was once a custom. The mountain folk put a heap of store in meter and rime as aids to memory. There was a wonderful storehouse of practical, down to earth knowledge in rimes that were learned and recited around the hearth fire.
Rimelore sessions took place along with telling riddles and playing games, sessions in which both young and old participated. Such gatherings, here in the mountains, are a thing of the past, with the advent of television and the internet.
Many weather rimes are still fresh in the minds of old timers. They are so familiar to be proverbial but their underlying purpose was informational and served the farmer and travelers as guides to planning and pursuing his occupation. Such as : Year of snow, fruit will grow. Or Rain before seven, clear before eleven.
Tricks of many trades and epitomized conclusions of long observations are buried in these how to know verses. Will the fishing be good? What is the wind?
When the wind is in the east, then the fishes bite the least.
When the wind is in the west, the fishes bite the best.
When the wind is in the north, then fishes do come forth.
When the wind is in the south, it blows the bait in the fishes mouth.
Should you buy this horse?
One white foot – buy him.
Two white feet – try him.
Three white feet – look well about him.
Four white feet – go without him.
Names of the evangelists were memorized by this rime:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Saddle the cat and I’ll get on
Gimme a stick and I’ll lay on
Open the gate and I’ll be gone
Alphabet rimes were still very popular until the mid-forties. The idea of this device was to assist children in learning the letters of the alphabet, incidentally, is at least as old as the 119th Psalm, which consists of 22 eight verse sections corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Chaucer’s “A.B.C.” a poem in honor of the Virgin Mary and written in 1375 is the extant alphabet rime in English, but it was taken from a French original written half a century earlier.
The most famous tongue twister, “Peter Piper”, which is the sole stanza now familiar from a merry alphabet rime popular in England and America in the 18th century beginning: “Andrew Airpump Ask’d his Aunt her Ailment,” and running through such exciting adventures as that of “Matthew Mendlegs” who “Miss’d a Mangl’d Monkey” and “Needy Noodle” who “Nipped a Naybour’s Nutmeg”. And just in case you don’t remember “Peter Piper Pick’d a Peck of Pickl’d Peppers.”
Then there were the counting-out rimes. One of the most famous was “William A Trembletoe” and goes like this:
William A Trembletoe
He’s a good fisherman;
Catches hens, puts them in pens.
Some lay eggs, some lay none.
Wire, briar, limberlock,
Three geese in a flock;
One flew east, one flew west,
One flew over the cookoo’s nest,
O-U-T spells out and begone,
You old dirty dish rag.