Context:

Location: London, England (TQ3079)
Year: Publ. 1871
Time of Occurrence: [Not given]
Collective Name: [Not given]

Source:

G.A.R.
Mother Goose's Melodies for Children, or Songs for the nursery...
London, 1872

Cast:

Text:

[Narrator]

[Verse 1]
When good King Arthur ruled this land,
He was a goodly king;
He stole three pecks of barley-meal
To make a bag-pudding.
[Verse 2]
A bag-pudding the king did make,
And stuffed it well with plums;
And in it put great lumps of fat,
As big as my two thumbs.
[Verse 3]
The king and queen did eat thereof,
And noblemen beside;
And what they could not eat that night,
The queen next morning fried.

Notes:

These verses, or lines from them are included in certain sword dance plays, including the one from Ampleforth, Yorks.
As far as I can tell from Internet sources, this rhyme was first published in, and made popular by "Mother Goose's Melodies". Of the numerous editions of this book, the earliest I have been able to find is this, dated 1871. Help in dating this rhyme would be welcome.
The British Library catalogue gives the publication date as 1872 [1871] , indicating actual publication in 1871 despite 1872 being given on the title page. [Original not yet checked.]
Verses downloaded from http://www.m-goose.com/nrg/libframe.html

File History:

2000-01-24 - Entered by Peter Millington
2021-01-15 - TEI-encoded by Peter Millington

Extras:

TEI-encoded File

A TEI-encoded XML version of this text can be downloaded here.

Text Relatives Map

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Other Information

There may be more about this text at:
https://folkplay.info/resources/texts-and-contexts/when-good-king-arthur-ruled-land-1871.