Children's singing games, with the tunes to which they are sung . London Bridge is Broken Down This version is from Kent, and was collected for me by Miss Dora Kimball. This game is universally acknowledged to be a very ancient one, butits origin is a subject of some diversity ot opinion. Knowing theimportance of holding bridges in early days, it is not surprisingthat the fall and rebuilding of so important a one as that of Londonshould be celebrated in rhyme, and so become the subject of a game, butthe special feature of this rhyme seems to be that considerable difficultyoccurs in the rebuild
Children's singing games, with the tunes to which they are sung . London Bridge is Broken Down This version is from Kent, and was collected for me by Miss Dora Kimball. This game is universally acknowledged to be a very ancient one, butits origin is a subject of some diversity ot opinion. Knowing theimportance of holding bridges in early days, it is not surprisingthat the fall and rebuilding of so important a one as that of Londonshould be celebrated in rhyme, and so become the subject of a game, butthe special feature of this rhyme seems to be that considerable difficultyoccurs in the rebuilding of the bridge by ordinary means, and withoutexactly suggesting that extraordinary means will have to be adopted aprisoner is suddenly taken. The widespread and barbarous rite of the foundation sacrifice may beshown here. Instances of this belief in tradition and its practice aremany, and some are given in Traditional Games, in my account of thisgame. It is sufficient here to state that there is a tradition that whenbuilding London Bridge, the stones were be
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Keywords: ., bookauthorgomm, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectgames
