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At the Wisconsin Winter Feis eight days ago, I was a bit dismayed and I think even a bit disturbed that so many young dancers not only did not know this classic rhyme by heart but had never even heard of it. Nor did they seem to care. This old nursery rhyme (Scotland 1841 by William Miller) plays a big part in the second Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer book, The Mystery of the Winking Judge. It is certainly not a bad reflection on parents or teachers not to have ingrained this classic rhyme into little heads. I am just surprised. I remember pounding it out rhythmically over and over again on my kids' high chair trays along with Mother Goose rhymes. After they had memorized a nursery rhyme, they would beat it out and recite it themselves...It just seemed odd that so many of the pounding feet at the feis had never tapped out, "Rapping at the window, Calling through the lock, Are the children in their beds? It is now eight o'clock."
Brenna Briggs is the author of the Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries
