There Was a Crooked Man

"There Was a Crooked Man" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 4826.

Lyrics

Common modern versions include:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.^[1]

The rhyme was first recorded by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s and gained popularity in the early twentieth century.^[1]

The popularity of the rhyme can be seen in its use in a variety of cultural contexts, including:

A reference to the "Crooked House" is made in Agatha Christie's 1949 novel of the same name.
W H Auden's 1937 poem "As I Walked Out One Evening" contains the lines "You shall love your crooked neighbour/With your crooked heart".
A science fiction short story, published in Astounding Science Fiction (February 1941) by Robert A. Heinlein is titled "—And He Built a Crooked House—".
A science fiction novella, published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact (February, 1967) by Jack Wodhams is titled "There Is a Crooked Man".
The Crooked Man is often portrayed in Babes in toyland as Uncle Barnaby, a mean and often miserly character, usually living up to his crooked stature

A 1960 British comedy film, There Was a Crooked Man starring Norman Wisdom and Susannah York
It is the title of a Western film There Was a Crooked Man... directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1970

In the Friends episode, "The One with the Thumb," Phoebe references the nursery rhyme, but incorrectly recites the rhyme, mixing it up with the woman in the shoe.

The rhyme is also adapted in a manga by Kaori Yuki.
Roman Dirge tells an altogether darker, more gothic version of the tale of the Crooked Man in an issue of his comic book series, Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl.
The Doctor in charge of the Everafter Asylum from the up comic Everafter is a Crooked Man.
In The God Child Chapter 2, They added these lines to the end: "There lived a crooked child, who lived in the crooked house. /And the child never knew anything but crooked love"
The Hellboy comics featured a villain known as "The Crooked Man" who is not only crooked in appearance but also in morals. It's been said that he served the devil and has special evil magical powers

British Glam-Rock band Slade uses a reference about this rhyme on "Did yer Mama ever tell ya".
The song was recorded, in a calypso music style, with the title "Don't Let the Rain Come Down", by the Serendipity Singers in 1964 which became a top ten hit. The final verse of this version is:

Now this crooked little man and his crooked cat and mouse

They all live together in a crooked little house.

Has a crooked door with a crooked little latch;

Has a crooked roof with a crooked little patch.

^ ^a ^b I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 289.

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