Hey Diddle Diddle

"Hey Diddle Diddle"
Roud #19478

The Cow jumps over the moon, according to William Wallace Denslow
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

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,
To which the Dish ran away with the Spoon.[1]

In more recent versions the archaic 'sport' is replaced with 'fun' or 'a sight'.

Origins

The earliest recorded version of the poem was printed in London in Mother Goose's Melody around 1765, with the lyrics:

High diddle diddle,
The Cat played the Fiddle,
The Cow jump'd over the Moon,
The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft,
To which the Dish kicked the Spoon.[1]

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."

Recordings

It was recorded in 1996 by The Kelly Family and appeared on their album Almost Heaven.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 203-4.
  2. ^ A. H. Bullen's 1904 facsimile of Newbery's 1791 edition of Mother Goose's Melody (on-line)
  3. ^ S. H. Gale, Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese (London: Taylor & Francis, 1996), p. 1127.