----- Original Message -----
From: Bill McCarthy <[log in to unmask]>
<<Folks, there are dozens and dozens of these stories/chants/songs. Some
exist in all three forms. We aren't going to find an original. There are
connections and cross-connections. They have been circulating in all the
European languages, and in many other languages as well, for 500, a
thousand, perhaps several thousand years, perhaps even longer than
that. We don't have to try to connect the cow with the crumpled horn to
the one kid my daddy bought for a nickle (free translation). There may not
be any connection. This sort of "formulaic string" is an idea for a song
or story. Once people have that idea, they can over time make up many
quite different songs that use that idea. And they have. See the
beginning of this note.>>
Right -- of course that's correct. But when the same string *and* the same
phrases show up, one begins to want to trace one song's worldline.
Peace,
Paul
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