Little Sir Hugh

1. It rains, it rains in merry Lincoln,
It rains both great and small,
When all the boys come out to play,
To play to toss their ball.


I am only including the first verse… This ballad is Child Ballad #155 (Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter). This is one of eighteen versions Child collected.

The ballad appears in Jamieson's Popular Ballads (circa 1783). Anglo-French ballads of the tale date back to 1259.

The events are supposed to have taken place in the 13th century. However, Bishop Percy concluded that the events were "groundless and malicious." Charges of ritual murder were common against Jews. They were first leveled in twelfth-century England, and occurred throughout Europe as late as the 1880s. These fabrications, known as the Blood Libel, made a cult of the supposed victims and was an excuse for persecution which took a toll of thousands of Jewish lives over many centuries.