Clap Hands
Clap hands, clap hands,
Till father comes home,
For fathers got money,
But mothers got none.
This rhyme has many different variations but all start with the words ‘clap hands’. It’s used as a wayof entertaining young children by taking hold of their hands and clapping them together while reciting the rhyme..
Boys and girls come out to play
Boys and girls come out to play,
The moon doth shine as bright as day,
Leave your supper, and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a good will, or not at all.
Up the ladder and down the wall,
A halfpenny loaf will serve us all.
You find milk, and I’ll find flour,
And we’ll have pudding within the hour.
This rhyme probably dates back to the middle of the 17th century, when all children were treated as small adults and would therefore often be found playing outside in the moonlight.
Baa baa black sheep
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
This popular rhyme probably dates back to the Middle Ages, possibly to the 13th Century, and relates to a tax imposed by the king on wool. One-third went to the local lord (the ‘master’), one-third to the church (referred to as the ‘dame’) and about a third was for the farmer (the ‘little boy who lives down the lane’).
More recently it has been the subject of some controversy in the UK where nurseries are citing a ‘rainbow’ sheep for fear of upsetting children with the idea that any sheep might possibly be black!!! I give up…….
‘Baa baa black sheep’ was used by Rudyard Kipling within his poem, The Gentlemen Rankers which you can read here.
There was a US tv series called Baa Baa Black Sheep which aired in 1976
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant’s something less than kind.
We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa–aa–aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Oh, it’s sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it’s sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be “Rider” to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you “Sir”.
If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?
We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa–aa–aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
A wise old owl
A wise old owl lived in an oak;
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?
Calvin Coolidge is said to have had this inscribed over a fireplace in his house.
This rhyme is always thought to be very old, but there is actually no record of it in print before World War 1.
Nursery Rhymes have been recited to children and by children for hundreds of years. They are a part of most people’s childhoods, but where did these rhymes originate from? What is the meaning behind the words?
Children carrying books
I am adding to my collection of nursery rhymes daily and have recently started a section for more modern rhymes as well as a small collection of naughty ones as well, just for fun.
I’ve collected the nursery rhyme meanings and origins over a long period of time, and I think I’ve heard most of them, even those I haven’t published.
I’ve tried to keep a grip on reality when compiling each page – after all in most cases no one can really know for sure how any of them originated. I just used my ’sensible’ gene and chose the one I personally thought sounded most likely.
Please don’t forget that no matter how plausible an origin of a rhyme may seem, no one really knows for sure how any of them came into being.
I get many emails from people asking me if nursery rhymes are copyrighted, and the answer is NO. Nursery rhymes generally can’t be traced back to any particular author so they are in the public domain, however you can’t copy my origins text as this is my own work, my own labour of love and you should write your own just as I did!