The Jackdaw Of Rheims Song

[Lauro Pericles]

The Ingoldsby Legends is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor (actually a pen name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham).

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the literary magazine Bentley's Miscellany, and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank. They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published in 1840, 1842 and 1847 by Richard Bentley. They remained popular during the 19th century but have since become little known. An omnibus edition was published in 1879: The Ingoldsby Legends; or Mirth and marvels.

As a priest of the Chapel Royal, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, such as the "hand of glory", they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore and poetry.

The collection contains one of the earliest transcriptions of the song A Franklyn's Dogge, an early version of the modern children's song Bingo. Other than this, the best-known poem of the collection is the Jackdaw of Rheims about a jackdaw who steals a cardinal's ring and is made a saint.

It has been discussed at length that the oldest documented usage of the phrase "two shakes of a lamb's tail" can be found within this compilation of Barham's works. Evidences of this are found within the chapters The Babes In The Wood; Or, The Norfolk Tragedy (p. 344), A Row In An Omnibus (Box): A Legend Of The Haymarket (p. 359), and The Lay Of St Aloys: A Legend Of Blois (p. 380). (See external links below for full text download.) This phrase has been attributed more modern-day importance since nuclear scientists during WWII coined a new unit of measure termed a "Shake," originally related to the Manhattan Project.

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