Or 
to 
CHILDREN’S RHYMES. 
Mouthed like a mill-door, 
Lugged like a cat ; 
Though you guess till noorday, 
Yell no guess that. 
Ans., Potato pot. 
The following riddle has a very wide range :— 
Come a riddle, come a riddle, 
Come a rot, tot, tot ; 
A wee wee man wi a red red coat, 
A staff in his hand and a stone in his throat. 
Ans., A cherry. 
The following I first heard in Annandale :—What is it that is 
very much used and very little thought of ? Ans., A dish-clout. 
I used to feel rather melancholy at the following narrative, 
sung in a low, monotcnous tone. 
No a beast in a the glen 
Laid an egg like Picken’s hen ; 
Some witch wife we dinna ken 
Sent a whitterock frae its den, 
‘Sooked the blood o’ Picken’s hen. 
Picken’s hen’s cauld and dead, 
Lying on the midden head. 
As I grew older I was warned away from straying in woods 
by the description of a hobgoblin. Folk-lorists are endeavouring 
to shew that Shakespeare’s “ Caliban” was suggested by no books 
of travel, but by the legends current about the men of the woods 
and caves, who existed in Warwickshire in the dim dawn of his- 
tory. I am sorry that I retain only four lmes descriptive of my 
terror, but they are graphic enough :— 
And every hair upon his head 
Is like a heather cow ; 
And every louse that’s looking oot 
Is like a bruckit yow (ewe). 
The followmg rhyme was given in autograph by Thomas 
Carlyle to a friend, and has been published in (Votes and Queries 
It is dated Chelsea, February, 1870. 
Simon Brodie had a cow 
He lost his cow and couldna find her ; 
