This rhyme goes back to the 1700's…
Up Hill and Down Dale
Up hill and down dale*;
Butter is made in every vale**;
And if that Nancy Cook
Is a good girl,
She shall have a spouse,
And make butter anon***,
Before her old grandmother
Grows a young man.
Notes
*A dale is a valley or a river valley.
**A vale is an especially wide and flat valley that often has a river or stream running through it.
***Straightway/without delay
Thanks and Acknowledgements
This rhyme can be found it in The Little Mother Goose (1912), illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, and printed in the USA. The illustration comes from An Alphabet of Old Friends (1874) by Walter Crane (with a little graphical editing by Lisa Yannucci).
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