“Boys and Girls Come Out to Play”

Description

"Girls and boys come out to play. You must have a holiday. Heigh-o, heigh-o, have a holiday." "If you want hay sweet and fine, Rake it when the sun doth shine. Heigh-o, heigh-o, when the sun doth shine."

Supplemental text

Boys and Girls Come Out to Play
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

An English Round

From Helen Hartness Flanders & George Brown, Vermont Folk-Songs
& Ballads, p. 187. Collected August 1930 from Nellie S. Richmond
of Springfield, Vermont.

Girls and boys come out to play.
We must have a holiday.
Heigh-o, heigh-o
Have a holiday.

If you want hay sweet and fine
Rake it when the sun doth shine.
Heigh-o, heigh-o
When the sun doth shine.

Notes

The first line of this occurs in _Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, Volume II_ (1744?), and the Tommy Thumb text occurs in various texts of the period (see the _Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes_); this may explain why Flanders and Brown call this "An English Round," but I know of no English collections of the actual form in Flanders/Brown. - RBW

References

1. Flanders/Brown, p. 187, "An English Round" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ST FlBr187 (Full)
3. Roud #5452
4. BI, FlBr187