Master of all Masters

[BurtWorm]

A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things.

He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me master of all masters. And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
"Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, that's my barnacle. And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.
"Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call them squibs and crackers. And what would you call her?" pointing to the cat.
"Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."

"You must call her white-faced simminy. And this now," showing the fire, "what would you call this?"
"Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it hot cockalorum, and what this?" he went on, pointing to the water.
"Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, pondalorum is its name. And what do you call all this?" asked he as he pointed to the house.
"House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it high topper mountain."

That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum, high topper mountain will be all on hot cockalorum."

[Palestine]

1. that is sweet

[BurtWorm]

2. That story is on a record by Danny Kaye I used to listen to as a child

I can't recall the name of the record, but it had stories from Vietnam, Russia, Sweden, Ethiopia and elsewhere. That was from England or Scotland, I think. It was such a great record!

[nannygoat]

3. Burt_Worm, that is one of my favorite Danny Kaye

songs! We had a record of them when I was a kid. My sister and I still repeat this one to each other once in awhile just for the fun of it.

[BurtWorm]

4. You mean, we weren't the only ones who had that?!

UwungaLAYma! :hi:

[nannygoat]

5. No! My sister actually met her significant other on Ebay when

she had two different bids on the same Danny Kaye record (she was planning to get one so that she could get CDs made for all of us and the nieces and nephews). Her future SO was a huge Danny Kaye fan and while trolling through the Danny Kaye listings he noticed that this same person had two bids for the same record (obviously another huge fan)! They started emailing each other and as they say, the rest is history. They now have a baby named, you guessed it, "Daniel"!

I also love the stone soup story. UwungaLAYma right back atcha.

[BurtWorm]

6. Aw! And if they have a girl they'll name her Kaye?

Or White-face Simminy? ;) The one that always got me was the Tolstoy story about the man burning his house to stay warm.