This is one of those innocent little songs that children used to sing–and maybe still do, somewhere–although I never knew anybody who could sing it as fast as Burl Ives does. Frog Went A-Courtin’ is a folk song with more variations, optional verses, than you can shake a stick at. I kept waiting for my favorite, about “the little moth who wiped her mouth on the table-cloth,” but Mr. Ives didn’t include it.
Yeah: this one, the one about the old woman who swallowed a fly (and then a spider to catch the fly, etc.), Jimmy Crack’d Corn, and the slightly less than dignified Jars and Jars of Green and Gushy Gopher-Guts–brightened up many an hour of childhood, way back when. I’m sure I don’t want to know what they’re singing now.
Anyone for Pop Goes the Weasel?