Hot Cross Buns

This article is about the nursery rhyme. For the food, see Hot cross bun.

"Hot Cross Buns"
Roud #13029
Song
Written	England
Published	c. 1798
Form	Nursery rhyme
Writer	Traditional
Language	English

"Hot Cross Buns" is an English language nursery rhyme, Easter song and street cry referring to the spiced English bun associated with Good Friday known as a Hot Cross Bun. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13029.

Lyrics

The most common modern version is:^[1]

	Hot Cross Buns Tune for Hot Cross Buns
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
one a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!

If you have no daughters,
give them to your sons.
One a penny two a penny,
Hot cross buns!

Origins

The earliest record of the rhyme is in Christmas Box, published in London in 1798.^[1] However, there are earlier references to the rhyme as a street cry in London, for example in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1733, which noted:

Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs
With one or two a penny hot cross buns.^[1]

^ Charles Hindley, History of the Cries of London: Ancient and Modern (Cambridge University Press, 2011). p. 218.

Notes

1 2 I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 197.

Nursery rhymes (list)

"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" "Hey Diddle Diddle" "Hickory Dickory Dock" "Hot Cross Buns" "Humpty Dumpty" "I'm a Little Teapot" "It's Raining, It's Pouring" "Jack and Jill" "Little Boy Blue" "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" "Poor Mary" "Pop Goes the Weasel" "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" "Roses are Red" "Sticks and Stones" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" "Rub-a-dub-dub"

Clapping	"A Sailor Went to Sea" "Down Down Baby" "Mary Mack" "Miss Susie" "Miss Lucy" "Pat-a-cake" "Pease Porridge Hot"

Counting	"Duck, duck, goose" "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" "One, Two, Three, Four, Five" "This Old Man" "Tinker, Tailor"

Finger- plays	"Five Little Monkeys" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "Little Robin Redbreast" "Round and round the garden" "This Little Piggy"

Games	"London Bridge" "The Muffin Man" "Mulberry Bush" "Oranges and Lemons" "Ring a Ring o' Roses" "The Farmer in the Dell"

Lullabies	"Hush, Little Baby" "Rock-a-bye Baby"

Rounds	"Ding Dong Bell" "Frère Jacques" "Kookaburra" "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" "Scotland's Burning" "Three Blind Mice"

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