Oral traditions

[bohemiancoast]

Or 'all knowledge is not contained on the internet' in fact. When I was a small child my father used to tell me bedtime stories. Some of them were poems. And one of our favourites was this...

"It was a dark and stormy night
The brigands they sat in their cave
The chief of the brigands arose, and he said
"Antonio, tell us a storio!"
And this is what he said.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Well, you get the idea. This could go on for some time. It's clearly a fairly widespread meme; the Ahlbergs wrote a book about it, for example.

M has just noticed that Googling for the version I learnt yields no results, though there's an instructive comment thread here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listeners/openinglines.shtml in which various people ascribe it to their fathers or the Scouts.

So. Do you remember this from your childhood? What words did you use? Where were you, geographically, at the time?
I have noted before that despite the work of the Opies, the rhymes remembered and told by children (in playgrounds and around campfires) are not, by and large, well documented as a tradition.

Comments

"T'was a dark and stormy night"

[(Anonymous)]

Are you still taking replys? Growing up in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio in the 1940's, I learned "T'was a dark and stormy night. Round the campfire sat brigands large and brigands small. Up stepped the trusty Lieutenant and said, 'Antonio tell us one of your famous stories.' And he began, "T'was..." I was talking about it the other night, decided to look it up and found this thread. There must be more out there somewhere, but thank you for starting it.

Re: "T'was a dark and stormy night"

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

More replies are always welcome! But I've screened this thread because it attracts spammers, so I need to unscreen genuine replies individually.

Meanwhile, Steve Roud has written a book on playground lore. I will have to see if the dark and stormy night is in there.