Hey Diddle Diddle
| "Hey Diddle Diddle" Roud #19478 |
|
 The Cow jumps over the moon, according to William Wallace Denslow |
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| Written by | Traditional |
|---|---|
| Published | c. 1765 |
| Written | England |
| Language | English |
| Form | Nursery rhyme |
"Hey Diddle Diddle" (also "Hi Diddle Diddle", "The Cat and the Fiddle", or "The Cow Jumped Over the Moon") is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19478.
Contents |
[edit] Lyrics
One of the most commonly used modern versions of the rhyme is:
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon,
The little Dog laughed to see such sport,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.[1]
In more recent versions the archaic 'sport' is replaced with 'fun' or 'a sight'.
[edit] Origins
The book comments:"It must be a little dog that laugh'd, for a great dog would be ashamed to laugh at such nonsense." [2] There is a reference in Thomas Preston's A lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth, conteyning the life of Cambises King of Percia, printed in 1569 that may refer to the rhyme:
They be at hand Sir with stick and fidle;
They can play a new dance called hey-didle-didle.[1]
There are numerous theories about the origin of the rhyme, these include: James Orchard Halliwell's suggestion that it was a corruption of ancient Greek, probably advanced as a result of a deliberate hoax; that it was connected with Hathor worship; that it refers to various constellations (Taurus, Canis minor, the Big Dipper etc.); that it describes the Flight from Egypt; that it depicts Elizabeth, Lady Katherine Grey, and her relationships with the earls of Hertford and Leicester; that it deals with anti-clerical feeling over injunctions by Catholic priests for harder work; that it describes Katherine of Aragon (Katherine la Fidèle); Catherine, the wife of Peter the Great; Canton de Fidèle, a supposed governor of Calais and the game of cat (trap-ball).[1] This profusion of unsupported explanations was satirised by J.R.R. Tolkien in his fictional explanations of 'The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late'.[3] Most scholarly commentators consider these unproven and that the verse is probably meant to be simply nonsense,[1] which is probably why Edward Lear drew his illustrations to go along with the poem in "Queery Leary Nonsense."
[edit] Recordings
It was recorded in 1996 by The Kelly Family and appeared on their album Almost Heaven.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 203-4.
- ^ A. H. Bullen's 1904 facsimile of Newbery's 1791 edition of Mother Goose's Melody (on-line)
- ^ S. H. Gale, Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese (London: Taylor & Francis, 1996), p. 1127.
