Childlore

Each-uisge
(water horse)
Skye, 1997
Stages of transmission

STAGE 1: Adult to child (birth to school-age)

STAGE 2: Child to child (age 5 – 11-ish; pre-

adolescent

You may wish to add in a third stage,

adolescence.
 Hand-
clapping
Ball bouncing (Dundee, school playground)

 
Stot, stot ba’ ba’ Ball-bouncing rhyme (stot = bounce)
 
Stot [bounce], stot, ba, ba,
Twenty lassies on the Laa
No a lad among them a',
Stot, stot, ba, ba.
 
The ‘Laa’ is Dundee Law, where Hilltown School is situated.
• You should now watch the film documentary “The Singing

Street” filmed in a street in Edinburgh in 1951.

• https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/0799

• See also:
• Ritchie, James T.R. The Singing Street.
Edinburgh & London, l964.
 Further reading
Chambers, Robert. Popular Rhymes of Scotland, London and Edinburgh, l826 & l870.

Gomme, Alice Bertha, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland. 2 vols. l894, 1898

Maclagan, Robert Craig. The Games and Diversions of Argyllshire. PFLS 47. London, l90l.

McVicar, E., Scots Children’s Songs and Rhymes: Doh, Ray, Me, When Ah Wis Wee, Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2007.

Montgomerie, N. (author & Illustrator), This Little Pig Went to Market: Play Rhymes for Infants and Young

Children, London, Bodley, 1983.

Montgomerie, N. & W., Sandy Candy and other Scottish Nursery Rhymes, London, Hogarth Press, l948.

Montgomerie, N. & W., The Well at World's End: Folk Tales of Scotland Retold, London, Hogarth Press, 1956.

Montgomerie, N. & W., Traditional Scottish Nursery Rhymes, Edinburgh, Chambers.

Ritchie, James T.R. The Singing Street. Edinburgh & London, l964.