ized it as Hungarian, and it
has also been identified with an ancient Biscayan sword-dance. In the
Netherlands there is, or used to be, a harvesting song, sung by laborers,
who were paid with a tenth of the grain and all the buttermilk they could
drink:

Yankerdidel doodel down,
Didel, dudel lanter,
Yanke viver, voover, vown,
Botermilk und tanther.

In other words, "buttermilk and a tenth." Old Hollanders in the United
States may recall the stanza.

In the days of Cromwell, one of the nicknames which the Cavaliers bestowed
upon the Puritans was "Nankee Doodle." When Cromwell entered Oxford this
stanza was written:

Nankee Doodle came to town
Upon a little pony,
With a feather in his hat
Upon a macaroni.

Another and more common version was as follows:

Yankee Doodle came to town
Upon a Kentish pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called him Macaroni.

In the reign of Charles II we first hear beyond any doubt the air to which
"Yankee Doodle" is now sung. To it were set the following lines, which
remain as a nursery rhyme:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
Nothing in it, nothing in it,
But the binding 'round it.

The air came to be known as "Kitty Fisher," or "Kitty Fisher's Jig."

In 1755, when the Colonial troops were joining the British regulars in the
invasion of Canada, by way of Albany, Dr. Schuckburgh, a surgeon attached
to Lord Amherst's forces, is said to have derisively adopted the tune for
the use of the Colonials, who apparently accepted it in good faith as an
established martial air.

To attribute to Dr. Schuckburgh the words which were afterward sung to the
air is to disregard the internal evidence of the words themselves--unless,
as is possible, though not probable, the stanzas referring to Washington
were added later.

The full set of stanzas, entitled "The Yankee's Return from Camp," appear
to date from the latter part of 1775, after the battle of Bunker Hill,
when the Continental army, under General Washington's command, was
encamped in the vicinity of Boston.

The Tories were then singing to the old tune of "Kitty Fisher" these
lines:

Yankee Doodle came to town
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock.

The original Tory quatrain referred to the smuggling of muskets into the
country by the patriots. The stanzas subs