Talk:Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

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The articles now are split. JoergenB 09:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Since most of my comments concerned the song, not the film, I move them from Talk:Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (film) to this page: JoergenB 10:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article move, spit, redirection?

Right now, this article is about two separate items: (Originally) a film, and (as an afterthought) a song. I do not think this is a good idea. (Incidently, I found the article by means of an interwiki link about the song.)

The song is the older item in this case. The novel was written with a title the author thought all would recognise; and there are several references around, of the type "To the tune of 'Here we go round the mulberry bush'". (That includes a couple of references to this article!) Personally, I've heard about the song, but not the movie; but I'm a Swede and have some interests in folklore, whence I might not be representative. However, if indeed the song, game, or nursery rhyme indeed is more well-known than the film, or they are more or less equally well-known, I'd recommend the song article to retain the main name. In either case, the articles should be split; but the precise manner should preferrably be done by people knowing which item our readers are most likely to search for under this name.

Please, also note that there are several books with this title; not only Hunter Davies's; vide infra!JoergenB 17:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I have got no reaction (and this hopefully means that there are no complaints against my suggestion of a page split), I now have made a formal request for a split. In addition two the song article and the film article, of course one could make a disambiguation page; but I suggest not, as long as there are not various articles for the books with the title HWGRTM. JoergenB 19:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On the origin of the song

Right now, the text contains the following claim (and protest):

The song derives from prisoners at HMP Wakefield being sent to walk round a Mulberry Bush.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}

This is a statement I doubt, to put it mildly. It is more or less quoted from our article Wakefield, where this is stated as a fact. There a reference is given to a subpage of the official Wakefield webpage, with information and perhaps a touch of advertising. However, this source does not at all go as far as to claim this to be correct; what they write is (my boldface):

This well-known children's nursery rhyme may have begun life as a song or chant by inmates of Wakefield prison as they exercised around a mulberry bush within the prison grounds.

This is speculative, but clearly not just their own speculation; there is an indirect reference to a book about the history of the prison, with a suggestive title:

Duncan, R.S.: 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' The House of Correction 1595 / HM Prison Wakefield 1995 (published by author 1994)

According to the reference, seemingly, at that time Duncan was prison governor, and wrote the book to commemorate an anniversary. This means that Duncan probably isn't a folklorist in the first place, and might not have checked up the existence of parallels in other languages. Indeed, similar songs and an associated game is found in Danish, Norwegian (cf. no:Så går vi rundt om en enebærbusk), and Swedish; and according to the Norwegian article also in Belgium and the Netherlands. In the Scandinavian variants, "the mulberry bush" is replaced by "a juniper bush" - or vice versa, depending on which language group version of the song and game is the older.

I may do an injustice to Mr./Ms. Duncan, who might be well versed in folklore studies and/or may have quoted other and more professional books. I suspect that it might be a bit hard to find the book outside Wakefield and its vicinity, though. However, it would be nice, if some wikipedian is able to find a copy and to decide whether this is just a speculative idea yielding a nice book title, or has some substance. Pending this, I think that we should mention this as as "a suggestion" and nothing more.

Anyhow, the wakefield interest produced a nice link to the full text (which really is very close to the song I and a million other Swedes know from childhood, and often sing at Christmas time).JoergenB 17:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tune comparison

The article says:

The tune is similar to that of the Christmas carol I Saw Three Ships.

Compare the tunes. They don't appear to have much in common:

Mulberry Bush:

F-F-F-F-A
C-C-A-F-F
G-G-G-G-F
E-E-D-C
F-F-F-F-A
C-C-A-F-F
G-G-C-D-E
F-F

I Saw Three Ships:

D, G-G-A-B, D-B-A-C, B-G-G-B, A-F♯-D-D, G-G-A-B, D-B-A-C, B-G-G-A-B, A-G

Checking the tunes, lining up the notes:

  1. The only point where they're the same notes are the 3rd and 4th beats of the third measure (putting the tunes in regular 6/8 time, not counting the pickup note D at the beginning of I Saw Three Ships), and this is G.
  2. The G functions in 2 different ways. In The Mulberry Bush it is the second note in the key of F major and in I Saw Three Ships it is the first note in the key of G major.

Georgia guy (talk) 22:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I found the actual tune on kididdles.com, here. Angie Y. (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)