Notes
2] lawzy-daisy: "la + ye" (`law' or `la,' a term of astonishment, and `ye,' the second-person pronoun) and `dazy' (in a dazed way).
16] giggle-un: giggling.
21] Whittington: Richard Whittington, lord mayor of London three times from 1397 to 1420, is by legend said to have owed his trading fortune to his cat.
22] "Golden Locks": Andrew Lang's blue book of fairy tales tells the story of Goldilocks (the golden-haired young lady) and the three bears. See The Blue Fairy Book (1889; New York: Dover, 1965).
25-26] Jack the Giant-Killer destroyed giants in Arthurian times, on one occasion by digging a pit into which a giant would fall, and on another by using magic coat, shoes, and sword. The other Jack, a poor widow's son, climbed a magic beanstalk to steal, from another giant, a hen that laid golden eggs. That giant, pursuing Jack down the beanstalk, fell to his death.
27-31] Cinderell: Cinderella ... a fairy tale in which a servant girl, abused by her stepmother and three stepsisters and left alone after they go to the prince's ball, receives from her fairy godmother all the gifts she needs to go too: beautiful clothes and a coach (made from a pumpkin) led by six horses (made from mice). When the clock strikes midnight, everything reverts to what it was, and the mice do scamper home. See Charles Perrault, Popular Tales, ed. Andrew Lang (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: James Whitcomb Riley, Complete Works, Memorial edn. in 10 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916): IV, 1103-04. PS 2700 F16 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
10
May
1895
Publication date note: Indianapolis Journal (May 10, 1895)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/16*1:2005/3/1*1:2005/3/1
Rhyme: ababcdcd