The Pleasant History of JACK HORNER CONTAINING
Reading edition
His witty tricks and pleasant pranks, which he play'd from his youth to his riper years: Right pleasant and delightful for winter and summer recreations.
Newcastle: Printed in this present Year.
This is somewhat similar to "The Friar and the Boy," but is even coarser.
"Jack Horner was a pretty lad, Near London he did dwell, His father's heart he made full glad His mother lov'd him well; She often set him on her lap, To turn him dry beneath And fed him with sweet sugar'd pap, Because he had no teeth. While little Jack was sweet and young, If he by chance should cry, His mother pretty sonnets sung, With a Lulla ba by; With such a dainty, curious tone, As Jack sat on her knee, So that e'er he could go alone, He sung as well as she. A pretty boy, of curious wit, All people spoke his praise And in the corner he would sit In Christmas holy-days: When friends they did together meet, To pass away the time; Why, little Jack, he sure would eat His Christmas pye in rhime. And said, Jack Horner, in the corner, Eats good Christmas pye, And with his thumbs pulls out the plumbs, And said Good boy am I. These pretty verses which he made Upon his Christmas cheer, Did gain him love, as it is said, Of all both far and near."
Jack Horner was a dwarf, and never exceeded thirteen inches in height. His first exploit was to frighten a tailor who stole some of his cloth, by putting on the head of a goat lately killed, and pretending to be the devil. He had a fight with a cook-maid who chastised him for making a sop in the dripping-pan, in which he got the best of it. An old hermit being desirous of a jug of beer, Jack brought it to him, and in return the hermit presented him with a coat in which he should be invisible, and a pair of enchanted pipes, both of which he tried on some fiddlers, making them dance sorely against their will. He had many adventures, but his last was with a giant who had seized and imprisoned a knight's daughter. Jack armed himself, and mounting on a badger, rode down the giant's throat, and with his pipes and sword created such a disturbance in his inside, that the giant died, and Jack delivered the lady, whom he afterwards married.