chapter I

will add a few rustic riddles: Tweea lookers, twea crookers, fower dilly danders, four stiff standers, an’ a wig-wam (Wm. Lan.). Ans. A cow. Clink, clank doon the bank, Ten again four; Splish, splash in the dish, Till it run ower (Nhb.). Ans. The milking of a cow. Creep-hedge, crop-thorn; Little cow with the leather horn (Yks.). Ans. A hare. The bat, the bee, the butterflee, the cuckoo, and the gowk, The heather-bleat, the mire-snipe, hoo many birds is that (Sc. Irel.)? Ans. Two. So black’s my ’at, so white’s my cap, Magotty pie, and what’s that (Som.)? This is a kind of jibe-riddle asked of very stupid persons. The common dialect expression _to come to_, meaning _to cost_, gives rise to the following version of a well-known arithmetical problem: If a herrin’ and a half come to dree ’aa-pence, what will a hundred o’ coal come to? Ans. Ashes. What’s the smallest thing as is sold alive in markut? Ans. A mint [a cheese-mite].

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