The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren

Iona Opie, Peter Opie

New York Review of Books, Aug 31, 2000 - Social Science - 488 pages

First published in 1959, Iona and Peter Opie's The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is a pathbreaking work of scholarship that is also a splendid and enduring work of literature. Going outside the nursery, with its assortment of parent-approved entertainments, to observe and investigate the day-to-day creative intelligence and activities of children, the Opies bring to life the rites and rhymes, jokes and jeers, laws, games, and secret spells of what has been called "the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no signs of dying out."

Contents

• INTRODUCTORY: 1
• JUST FOR FUN: 17
• WIT AND REPARTEE: 41
• GUILE: 57
• RIDDLES: 73
• PARODY AND IMPROPRIETY: 87
• TOPICAL RHYMES: 98
• CODE OF ORAL LEGISLATION: 121
• Affirmation Testing Truthfulness Bets Bargain Making Swopping: 141
• NICKNAMES AND EPITHETS: 154
• Characteristics of Schoolchild Language Their Own Name Other: 172
• Spoilsports Sourpusses Spitfires Cleverdicks Dafties Fools: 203
• Juvenile Attitude to Folklore Ambulances Omens on the Way: 228
• OCCASIONAL CUSTOMS: 293
• SOME CURIOSITIES: 306
• FRIENDSHIP AND FORTUNE: 323
• New Years Day St Valentines Day Shrove Tuesday: 335
• PARTISANSHIP: 343
• THE CHILD AND AUTHORITY: 361
• PRANKS: 377
• Door Knocking and Bell Ringing Prevalence of Pranks Pedestrian: 391
• GENERAL INDEX: 409

Popular passages

Page iv - ... culture' is used here deliberately) which is as unnoticed by the sophisticated world, and quite as little affected by it, as is the culture of some dwindling aboriginal tribe living out its helpless existence in the hinterland of a native reserve.

About the author

Iona (1923-2017) and Peter Opie (1918-1982) began their research together in 1944. Fifteen years later, they published The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren and took their places as, to quote The Guardian, “the supreme archivists of the folklore movement.” Since that time, they have jointly published The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, The Classic Fairy Tales, and Children’s Game in Street and Playground. After Peter Opie’s death in 1982, Iona Opie carried on with their work under his name as well as her own.

Marina Warner’s studies of religion, mythology, and fairy tales include Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, From the Beast to the Blonde, and Stranger Magic (National Book Critics Circle Award for Literary Criticism; Truman Capote Prize). A Fellow of the British Academy, Warner is also a professor of English and creative writing at Birkbeck College, London. In 2015 she was given the Holberg Prize.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren; New York Review Books classics
• Authors: Iona Opie, Peter Opie
• Contributor: Marina Warner
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, revised
• Publisher: New York Review of Books, 2000
• ISBN: 0940322692, 9780940322691
• Length: 488 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Children's & Young Adult Literature; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; Social Science / Children's Studies