Yorkshire Words Of The Week

From: Rev Canon J Calvert, Darlton, Newark, Nottinghamshire.MRS V Russell asks for different versions of Christmas/New Year “Lucky Bird” rhymes (Country Week, December 24).

I know the following from where I grew up at Howden in East Yorkshire.

I remember children coming very early on Christmas morning when it was still dark, hoping to be the first to knock on our door and be the “Lucky Bird”. They would sing a couple of carols and then chant:

“We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year,

A purse full of money and a cellar full of beer;

A good fat pig to last you all the year,

Please will you give us a Christmas box.

Hole in my stocking, hole in my shoe,

Please can you spare a copper or two.

If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,

And if you haven’t got a ha’penny, God Bless You.

Lucky bird, lucky bird, chuck chuck chuck,

If you don’t get up you’ll have no luck.

You’ll have no luck if you don’t get up,

So lucky bird, lucky bird, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck.”

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The first comers – the lucky birds – were given a sixpence, and any after that, a threepenny bit.

It was the same on New Year’s morning with slight adaptation, ie:

“Happy New Year, happy New Year,

A purse full of money etc etc

Please will you give us a New Year’s gift.

Hole in my stocking etc etc

Lucky bird... etc”

Again the first comers, the lucky birds, were given a sixpence and any after that, a threepenny bit.

As far as I know, these rhymes are still in use.

From: RW Scales, Mill Lane, Pickering.

I RECALL my father telling me of when he was at school in the hamlet of Stape. The teacher, in an effort to arouse some interest in the scriptures, offered a small prize to any scholar who brought to school a short poem on any incident from the Bible. There was a negative response except for one boy who recited the following:

David ’ad a little stean

(David had a little stone)

Nea bigger nor a button

(No bigger than a button)

He sweald it at Goliath’s ’ead

(He threw it at Goliath’s head)

An’ killed ’im dead as mutton.

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