Дже́к и Джилл: История и Музыка́льная Эволю́ция Детской Стихотво́рки

English nursery rhyme

"Jack and Jill" (sometimes "Jack and Gill", particularly in earlier versions) is a traditional English nursery rhyme. The Roud Folk Song Index classifies the commonest tune and its variations as number 10266, although it has been set to several others. The original rhyme dates back to the 18th century and different numbers of verses were later added, each with variations in the wording. Throughout the 19th century new versions of the story were written featuring different incidents. A number of theories continue to be advanced to explain the rhyme's historical origin.

A musical arrangement of the rhyme as a catch by Charles Burney was published in 1777, at a date earlier than any still existing copy of Mother Goose's Melody. But the melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded with the three stanza version by the composer and nursery lore collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870), which was published in America as Mother Goose Set to Music the following year. And in 1877 the single stanza version illustrated by Walter Crane appeared in The Baby's Opera (London 1877), which described itself as "a book of old rhymes in new dresses, the music by the earliest masters". The Victorian composer Alfred James Caldicott, who distinguished himself by setting several nursery rhymes as ingenious part songs, adapted "Jack and Jill" as one in 1878. These works were described by the Dictionary of National Biography as a "humorous admixture of childish words and very complicated music with full use of contrast and the opportunities afforded by individual words". Among American adaptations of his work for female voices, there were settings by E. M. Bowman (New York, 1883) and Charles R. Ford (Boston, 1885). In Canada, Spencer Percival was responsible for a part song of his own for four voices, first performed in 1882. Sigmund Spaeth was eventually to have fun with the rhyme by adapting it to a number of bygone musical styles as The musical adventures of Jack & Jill in Words & Music: A Book of Burlesques, (Simon and Schuster, 1926). These included a Handel aria, Italian operatic and Wagnerian versions. Later on the English composer Geoffrey Hartley (1906–1992) set the original as a chamber piece for horn and two bassoons, or for wind trio (1975), and later reset it as a bassoon trio.

There are several theories concerning the origin of the rhyme. Most such explanations postdate the first publication of the rhyme and have no corroborating evidence. S. Baring Gould suggested that the rhyme is related to a story in the 13th century Icelandic Gylfaginning in which the brother and sister Hjuki and Bil were stolen by the Moon while drawing water from a well, to be seen there to this day. Other suggestions rooted in history include a reference to the executions of Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley in 1510, or to a marriage negotiation conducted by Thomas Wolsey in 1514. Alternatively it has been taken to satirise the attempt by King Charles I of England to raise extra revenue by ordering that the volume of a Jack (1/8 pint) be reduced, while the tax remained the same. In consequence of this, the Gill (a quarter pint in liquid measure) "came tumbling after". There is also a belief in Somerset that the rhyme records events in the village of Kilmersdon when a local girl became pregnant; the putative father is said to have died from a rockfall and the woman afterwards died in childbirth. The local surname of Gilson is therefore taken to derive from Gill's son. A more prosaic origin of the rhyme is suggested by historian Edward A. Martin, who notes that pails of water may readily have been collected from dew ponds, which were located on the tops of hills.