“Deservedly slain.” Indeed.

I have come into the possession of an old—very old—little book of nursery rhymes, “Aunt Friendly’s Book of Nursery Rhymes,” which surely dates from before 1900, and quite possibly well before that time. It has wonderful four-color illustrations, printed on only one side of a full sheet, so that when the book was bound there are a number of blank pages. If I knew a lot about old-fashioned book binding, I’d know why the blank pages show up when they do, but I don’t.

Anyway, the first rhyme is “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” I’m familiar with version that goes

“The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes.
Along came a blackbird
And snipped off her nose,”

Which, in this version, comes out as

“The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes
By came a jackdaw
And snapt off her nose,”

Which sounds English enough. But then there’s another verse, that I never saw before:

“They sent for the king’s doctor
Who sewed it on again
The Jackdaw for this naughtiness
Was deservedly slain.”

Deservedly slain! Yes, with cowardly jackdaws, one must take a firm hand.

Afterwords
To see this poem with its illustrations, go here and scroll down past the alphabet. You may have to wait a while, or open the page a couple of times, but eventually all the illustrations will load, and they’re definitely worth it. The illustrations are by “Kronheim,” who was a German printer in the Victorian era.