Little Sir Hugh

Little Sir Hugh

1. It rains, it rains in merry Lincoln,
It rains both great and small,
When all the boys come out to play,
To play to toss their ball.

2. They toss’d their ball so high, so high,
They toss’d their ball so low;
They toss’d it over the Jew’s garden,
With all the fine Jews below.

3. The first that came out was a Jew’s daughter,
Was dressed all in green:
Come in, come in, my little Sir Hugh,
You shall have your ball again.

4. O no, O no, I dare not a-come
With out my playmates too;
For if my mother should be at the door,
She would cause my poor heart to rue.

5. The first she offer’d him was a fig,
The next a finer thing;
The third a cherry as red as blood,
And that enticed him in.

6. She set him up in a gitty chair,
She gave him sugar sweet.
She laid him out on a dresser board,
And stabb’d him like a sheep.

7. And when the school was over,
His mother came out for to call,
With a little rod under her apron
To beat her son withal.

8. His mother she went to the Jew’s wife’s house,
And knocked aloud at the ring;
O little Sir Hugh if you are there,
Come let your mother in.

9. He is not here the Jew’s wife said,
He is not here today;
He’s with his school fellows on the green,
Keeping this high holiday.

10. My head is heavy I cannot get up,
My grave it is so deep;
Besides a pen knife sticks into my heart,
So up I cannot get.

11. Go home, go home, my mother dear,
And pare me a winding sheet;
For tomorrow morning before it is day
Your body and mine shall meet.

12. And lay my prayer book at my head,
And my grammar at my feet,
That all my school fellows as they pass by
May read them for my sake.

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