All Info About Nursery Rhymes

This old nonsense rhyme is probably just that - nonsense, however some people have suggested that the cat is Elizabeth Ist and the dog is Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester who she once referred to as her 'lap dog.'

Hey Diddle Diddle was a new dance accompanied by a fiddle according to a play written by Thomas preston in 1569.

Michelle Cheng kindly contacted me with the theory that the characters in this rhyme are actually constellations of stars, and the line, 'the dish ran away with the spoon' relates to the stars disappearing over the horizon.

Andy Bowers from the UK also suggested the following origin for this rhyme which certainly seem quite plausible. He says ....

"I understand that the origins date back to 1765.
It's named after an old-fashioned pubcrawl along the A537 Macclesfield to Buxton road in Cheshire/Derbyshire UK. The pubs featured in the nursery rhyme were built in the early 1700s by wealthy stone quarry owners..
Hey Diddle Diddle The Cat and the Fiddle = The Cat and Fiddle public house, which is still trading..
The cow jumped over the moon = the Half Moon pub, which ceased trading long ago.
The little dog laughed to see such fun (The Setter Dog public house, which ceased trading in 2002, was built in 1740).
And the dish ran away with the spoon (The Dish and Spoon public house, which in very recent years has changed its name, currently Peak View Tearooms).
The pubs are about 6 miles apart. The I'm not surprised there was merriment and jumping over moons, fortified by strong ale!"

Here is a picture reproduced with kind permission of Andy Bowers of the The Setter Dog pub