Sometimes the stories behind stories can be more interesting than the story itself. Such is the case with the children’s nursery rhyme/song “Frog Went A-Courtin.” My story of the song begins in the middle.
Years ago, my great uncle John Richards gave me an old book, “On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs,” published in 1925 by Harvard University Press. One of the songs included in the study was “Froggy Went A-Courtin.”
That song brought back memories of Minerva Sykes, an elderly black lady who was family cook, maid, baby sitter and basically helped raise me and my brother. She was family, and I recall being told that her mother had been born a family slave right before the Civil War.
Minerva, to my knowledge, had never married and was at our house every Christmas morning. She would always wake both me and my brother up by throwing open the door to our rooms and shouting “Christmas gift!” I never understood the meaning until years later when I read that in antebellum times the house servant who first woke up the children shouting “Christmas gift!” always got a special present. Minerva always had presents under the tree with everyone else.
With help from Carolyn Kaye, I recently discovered that Minerva’s mother was born shortly after the Civil War and worked in 1880 for my great-grandparents. But her grandmother had been a slave, possibly owned by my great-great-grandfather. Her ancestors were probably brought from Virginia to north Alabama around 1820 and then to Columbus around 1840. One of my earliest childhood memories is of Minerva singing “Frog Went A-Courtin'” to me. I remember her telling me it was just an old song she had always known. When she would have first sung the song to me, it would have been at the old family home where her mother had worked almost 100 years earlier.
About 20 years ago, my godson Brad Smith was talking to me about songwriting, and I gave him the old book on folksongs. Recently, I remembered the old book and thought there might be some good ideas for a column in it. I found a used copy and bought it. When I got it, the first thing that came to my mind was Minerva and “Frog Went A-Courtin.”
The version I remember began:
Frog went a-courtin’ and he did ride
uh hum uh hum
sword and a pistol by his side
uh hum uh hum
Rode on up to Miss Moussie’s door
uh hum uh hum
sword and a pistol by his side
uh hum uh hum
knelt right down upon the floor
uh hum uh hum
He took Miss Moussie on his knee
uh hum uh hum
and said Miss Moussie will you marry me
uh hum uh hum
The song itself has a fascinating history. Though, “Frog Went a-Courtin” was a popular rhyme or children’s song among African Americans in the South, its roots go back to Scotland. The first known reference to a version of the rhyme was “The frog came to the myl dur” which appeared in Scotland in 1548.
The most interesting tradition comes out of England where there is a reference to the rhyme “a Most Strange Wedding of the Frogge and the Mouse” in 1580.
In the late 1500s, English Queen Elizabeth I was being courted by a Frenchman, Francois, Duke of Anjou. The Duke was widely unpopular in England and his nickname was “the Frog,” thus “Frog went a-courtin,” which was said to be a satire of the Duke. The first account of the rhyme being put to music was in 1611. The rhyme made its way to America in colonial times and has been popular with children ever since. It has been sung and recorded by artists ranging from Tex Ritter and Elvis Presley to Bruce Springsteen.
Oh, and the used book I bought that had the rhyme in it had belonged to singer, songwriter and poet Rod McKuen and even contained some notations on rearranging one of the old songs.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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