Annotation - Chapter 1, Page 4
From Riddley Walker Annotations
- (4:20) "Out goes the candl"
Most of the stories in the book end with a ritual sign-off—a typical storyteller's device in oral traditions. EB
This could also be an allusion to the children's rhyme "Oranges and Lemons": "Here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper to chop off your head". Only a paragraph later there is a rhyme with a similar theme of circling and beheading. RG
Among countless other candle-extinguishing references, two from Shakespeare are notable: "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,/That it's had it head bit off by it young./So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling."—King Lear, I.iv RC; "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!"—Macbeth, V.v EB.