There Was a Crooked Man
"There Was a Crooked Man" | |
---|---|
Nursery rhyme | |
Published | 1842 |
Songwriter(s) | Unknown |
"There Was a Crooked Man" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 1826.[1]
Origin
The rhyme was first recorded in print by
- There was a crooked man and he went 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 liv'd together in a little crooked house.
It gained popularity in the early twentieth century.[3] One legend suggests[4] that this nursery rhyme originated in the once prosperous wool merchant's village of Lavenham, about 70 miles northeast of London, having been inspired by its multicolored half-timbered houses leaning at irregular angles as if they are supporting each other. One Lavenham house in particular, 'The Crooked House' is often cited as the inspiration for the rhyme.[5]
Other sources
The great recoinage around 1696 led to sixpence coins that were made of very thin silver and were easily bent, becoming "crooked".[9]
References
- ^ "Roud Folksong Index S299349 There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. English Folk Dance and Song Society. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
- ^ Halliwell, James Orchard (1842). The Nursery Rhymes of England. London: C. Richards. p. 30.
- I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 340.
- ^ Taylor, Bob (12 September 2011). "Lavenham, England: Part one of four great little places". Washington Times. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
- ^ Watkins, Flora (7 May 2022). "What it's like to live in the world's most famous crooked house". Country Life. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
- ^ Alchin, Linda (2013). "There was a Crooked Man". The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes (2nd ed.). Surrey, UK: Neilsen.
- ^ Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood
- ^ The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes Page 43
- ^ The British Almanac, 1856, page 17