The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-07-14
:for the CHILDREN.
The True BO-Peep.


About the year 1850 a gentleman, in
passing through part of England fa-
nous for its fine sheep, stopped one
night at an inn where there was placed
upon the supper table roast of fat
| mutton. The talk of the landlord turned
from the mutton to the sheep and the
great sheep-owners of the country; and
| he amused his guest with an account
| of a great quarrel between two neigh
| boring gentlemen, each of whom had
| brought suit against the other-one for
| the manning of his sheep, and the other
. for what he called unlawful seizure of a
part of his flock. The affair. said the
. landlord, was widely known, and had
excited considerable interest and been
made the subject of many jests, songs
and riddles; the point being as to how
certain flock of sheep could have lost
their tails and gotten them back again
on the same day? The story of the
affair, as related by the landlord, was as
follows: Each OF the gentlemen in
question was the owner of hundreds of
sheep, which fed in large fiocks on the
unenclosed downs or commons. They
were all of a breed remarkable for their
short legs and broad, fat, heavy tails,
on which the wool grew so long and
thick that it literally dragged on the
ground. They were divided into various
large tlocks, each of which was under
the charge of particular shepherd.
who appointed others, chiefly boys and
girls, to lead them about in smaller
companies, and watch lest they should
get mixed up with those of their neigh
bors. The shepherds of the two sheep
OWNERS were very jealous of each other,
and there was between them good
deal of quarreling, and even at times
fighting, concerning pasture, bounda-
ries and the ownership of stray
sheep.
One day simple young country
girl, who had about forty sheep in her
charge, sat down under shady haw-
thorn bush to watch her flock, and
there unfortunately fell asleep. Some
of the animals, finding themselves un-
checked, strayed off to a distance and
trespassed upon the territory of the
rival focks, when the shepherds
cruelty cut off their tails and then drove
them back to their own pastures. The
girl meanwhile had awakened and, in
sore dismay, searched for her missing
charge, which she at length, to her
great Joy, espied coming toward her
but alasl as she soon discovered, with
out their tails! Thereupon her lover,
young shepherd, went in great wrath,
with some of his companions, and had
fierce battle with the perpetrators Of
the outrage, whom they compelled to
keep the manned animals and give up
instead an equal number of their own
flock. Hence the lawsuits and the bit
ter enmity between the two neighbor-
ing families, owners of the sheep.
When first came across this account
in an old book, " A Jaunt Through En-
gland" was Immediately struck with
the similarity of incident to the we'll
known ballad of Bo-Peep." Indeed
/ can hardly doubt that this must have
been the origin of the pretty little pas
toral with which every child in the land
is familiar, and the explanation of that
puzzling riddle as to how Bo-Peep's
flock lost their tails and found them
again. The ballad was first popularity
known about the time that the book in
question was written-nearly one hun
dred years ago-and was then not a
nursery rhyme used to amuse children,
but a fashionable song sung by ladies
to the music of spinet 1t has since
been altered somewhat, but was orig
inally, as we find it in an old collection
of "Songs and Ballads" as follows:
Little Bo-peep
Lost her sheep
And didn't know where to find them;
Let them alone,
And they will come home,
Dragging their tails behind them.
So little Bopeep
watch did keep,
Nor troubled herself to find them;
And they all came back
But alas, and alackl
They had left their tails behind them!
Then she sighed and wept,
And at last she slept
And dreampt she heard them a.beating;
But when she awoke
She found ii joke
For again they were affecting.
Then her true love took
Her staff and crook
And travelled abroad to find them;
And he them
BY the light of the moon,
Dragging their tails behind them!
June Wide AlCdke.