This Little Piggy
| "This Little Piggy" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Written | England |
| Published | 1760 |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"This Little Piggy" or "This little pig" is an English language nursery rhyme and fingerplay. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19297.
Lyrics
The most common modern version is:
- This little piggy went to market.
- This little piggy stayed at home.
- This little piggy has roast beef,
- This little piggy had none.
- And this little piggy cried "Wee! Wee! Wee!" all the way home.[2]
Finger play
The rhyme is usually counted out on a person's toes, each line corresponding to a different toe, starting with the big toe. A foot tickle is usually added during the "Wee...all the way home" section of the last line. The rhyme can also be seen as a counting rhyme, although the number of each toe (from 1 for the big toe to 5 for the little toe) is never stated.
Origins
The first line of this rhyme was quoted in a medley "The Nurse's Song", written about 1728, a full version was not recorded until it was published in The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book, published in London about 1760.[3] It then appeared with slight variations in many late eighteenth and early nineteenth century collections. Until the mid-twentieth century the lines referred to "little pigs".[3]
References to this nursery rhyme
- The game was used repeatedly in Warner Bros. cartoons, such as A Tale of Two Kitties (1942) and A Hare Grows In Manhattan (1947), typically when the "bad guy" in the film is hanging onto a line high above ground, and the protagonist peels off the antagonist's fingers one by one to the inevitable conclusion: "What do you know... Ran out of piggies!" This recurring gag is referenced in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), where Tweety Bird essentially re-enacts his "piggies" scene from A Tale of Two Kitties, this time with Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) as the victim.
- In Seinfeld season 5 episode 21 "The Fire" Elain wonders: "Sure, the pinky toe is cute! But, I mean, what is it? It's useless! It does nothing. It's got that little nail that is just impossible to cut. What do we need it for?" and Jerry explains: "Because Elaine, that's the one that goes 'wee-wee-wee all the home'."
- Both title and plot of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Five Little Pigs (1942) refer to this nursery rhyme.
- The novel Good Omens (1990) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman depicts an adaptation of the rhyme, sung to the supposed Antichrist by his demonic nursemaid.
- In a comic strip by Jules Feiffer, Ronald Reagan recites the rhyme as a sort of allegory to aspects of modern life: the little piggy who went to market is pictured as a Wall Street tycoon; the piggy who stayed home is a common, poverty stricken or homeless man; the piggy who ate roast beef is a big, muscular army general, the piggy who had none is a little, African-American child, and the piggy who cried "wee-wee-wee" all the way home is a rural couple reminiscent of Grant Wood's American Gothic. It turns out he was addressing the public on TV and two viewers are impressed: "He's the Great Communicator! One More Time!!" little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home (wiggle fifth toe and a little foot tickle).
- In the sitcom Friends, Chandler says he misses the tip of his toe, and tells Monica, "sorry doesn't bring back the piggy who cried all the way home!"
- Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) noticed that five digits for tetrapods was not a dogma: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eight_Little_Piggies&oldid=322843270
Notes
Bibliography
- Wentworth, George; Smith, David Eugene. Work and Play with Numbers. Boston: Ginn & Company (1912).