Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Jack jump over
The candlestick.
First found in a rhyme collection in 1815, this rhyme is not apparently as ancient as some nursery rhymes, especially since it would appear that it doesn’t pre-date this time.This rhyme, it would seem, is much more literal than some of the others we’ve looked at so far as it alludes, quite simply, to the tradition of candle leaping. Most notably, in England there is a feast to Saint Catherine (25th November) which is sometimes known as Catterns day. St Catherine is the patron saint of spinsters, and was celebrated by lace-makers, spinners and rope-makers throughout the 1800s. At the culmination of these celebrations, a lighted candle would be jumped for luck. If it remained alight, then St Catherine was said to have granted such luck, and the following year would be prosperous. Sadly, despite the great value of lace, the lace-makers did not often have a great deal of money and since candles were expensive, often they would work with just one candle burning. Perhaps this is how Candle jumping became a part of the Catherine’s day celebrations.
Another reference to this custom is in social/local historian Ginette Dunne’s “fellowship of song”. This book is a study of singing traditions which was published in 1980 and contained what is now known as “Oral History”, that is an examination of stories told first hand to the researcher (Or in some cases recorded for later use by various researchers). In this study, Ginette records the experience of a man named Ben Lings who recalled seeing the ladies of the village, at Christmas, hitching up their skirts to leap the candle whilst singing this rhyme.
References
Dunn, Ginette, The Fellowship Of Song, 2nd edn (Routledge, 1980), p. 118
Opie, Iona Archibald, and Peter Opie, The Oxford Dictionary Of Nursery Rhymes, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 268