{{Short description|English nursery rhyme}} {{pp-pc|small=yes}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} [[File:Little Jack Horner 2 - WW Denslow - Project Gutenberg etext 18546.jpg|thumb|William Wallace Denslow’s illustration of the rhyme, 1902]]
"'''Little Jack Horner'''" is a popular English nursery rhyme with the Roud Folk Song Index number 13027. First mentioned in the 18th century, it was early associated with acts of opportunism, particularly in politics. Moralists also rewrote and expanded the poem so as to counter its celebration of greediness. The name of Jack Horner also came to be applied to a completely different and older poem on a folkloric theme; and in the 19th century, it was claimed that the rhyme was originally composed in satirical reference to the dishonest actions of Thomas Horner in the Tudor period.
==Lyrics and melody== The song’s most common lyrics are:
{{poemquote|Little Jack Horner Sat in the corner, Eating his Christmas pie; He put in his thumb, And pulled out a plum, And said, "What a good boy am I!"}}
It was first documented in full in the nursery rhyme collection ''Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle'', which may date from 1765, although the earliest surviving English edition is from 1791.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/metsnav3/general/index.html#mets=http%3A%2F%2Fpurl.dlib.indiana.edu%2Fiudl%2Fgeneral%2Fmets%2FVAB8620&page=21 |title=Indiana University |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=6 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206103017/http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/metsnav3/general/index.html#mets=http%3A%2F%2Fpurl.dlib.indiana.edu%2Fiudl%2Fgeneral%2Fmets%2FVAB8620&page=21 |url-status=live }}</ref>
The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott, in his ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs'' (1870).<ref>J. J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'' (Courier Dover Publications, 5th ed., 2000), {{ISBN|0486414752}}, p. 502.</ref>
==Origin and meaning== thumb|upright=1.15|The original melody, 1877 The earliest reference to the well-known verse is in "Namby Pamby," a satire by Henry Carey published in 1725, in which he himself italicised lines dependent on the original:
{{poemquote| Now he sings of ''Jackey Horner'' ''Sitting in the Chimney-Corner'' ''Eating of a Christmas pye,'' ''Putting in his thumb'', Oh fie! ''Putting in,'' Oh fie! ''his Thumb,'' ''Pulling out'', Oh strange! ''a Plum.''<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_aYcfWZjTJkC&q=Henry+Carey+++Namby+Pamby&pg=PA140 |title=''Verse in English from Eighteenth Century Ireland'' – Google Books |isbn=9781859181034 |access-date=2012-11-26 |last1=Carpenter |first1=Andrew |year=1998 |publisher=Cork University Press |archive-date=9 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025839/https://books.google.com/books?id=_aYcfWZjTJkC&q=Henry+Carey+++Namby+Pamby&pg=PA140 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
This occurrence has been taken to suggest that the rhyme was well known by the early eighteenth century.<ref name="auto">Opie 1997</ref> Carey's poem ridicules fellow writer Ambrose Philips, who had written infantile poems for the young children of his aristocratic patrons. Although several other nursery rhymes are mentioned in his poem, the one about Little Jack Horner has been associated with acts of opportunism ever since. Just six years later, it figured in another satirical work, Henry Fielding's ''The Grub Street Opera'' (1731). Fielding's rendition had the prime minister, Robert Walpole, as its target, and ended with all the characters processing off the stage "to the music of Little Jack Horner."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=hes&p=1348 |title=Little Jack Horner – Mama Lisa's House of English Nursery Rhymes |publisher=Mamalisa.com |date=2007-07-04 |access-date=2012-11-26 |archive-date=16 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716231903/http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=hes&p=1348 |url-status=live }}</ref>
The political theme was later taken up by Samuel Bishop, one of whose epigrams describes the Civil service bureaucracy and enquires:
{{poemquote| What are they but JACK HORNERS, who snug in their corners, ::Cut freely the public pie? Till each with his thumb has squeezed out a round plum, ::Then he cries, “What a Great Man am I!”<ref>''The poetical works of the Rev. Samuel Bishop'', London 1796, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000115371340;view=1up;seq=197 Epigram XXII] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025807/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/html?id=inu.30000115371340;seq=199 |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref>}} Soon after, Thomas Love Peacock took up the theme in his satirical novel, ''Melincourt'' (1817). In ''Melincourt'', five go-getting characters contribute to a song describing how they misuse their trades to fleece the public. It begins with the recitative:
{{poemquote| Jack Horner's CHRISTMAS PIE my learned nurse Interpreted to mean the public purse. From thence a plum he drew. O happy Horner! Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner?}}
Each in turn then describes the nature of his sharp practice in his particular profession, followed by the general chorus: “And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, / We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.”<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thomaslovepeacock.net/melipoem.html#poem08 |title=Poems from "Melincourt" |publisher=Thomaslovepeacock.net |access-date=2012-11-26 |archive-date=20 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100420053818/http://www.thomaslovepeacock.net/melipoem.html#poem08 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Adeline Dutton Train Whitney likewise applied the nursery rhyme to opportunism in American society in ''Mother Goose for grown folks: a Christmas reading'' (New York, 1860). The privileged little boy grows up to become “John, Esquire,” and goes in search of richer plums, where he is joined in his quest by "female Horners."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Whitney |first=Adeline Dutton Train |url=https://archive.org/details/mothergoo00whitrich/mothergoo00whitrich |title=Mother Goose for grown folks: a Christmas reading |publisher=Rudd & Carleton |year=1860 |location=New York |pages=13–17 |language=en |oclc=1049691321 |ol=7243829M |access-date=25 January 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240126061755/https://archive.org/details/mothergoo00whitrich/mothergoo00whitrich |archive-date=26 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>
John Bellenden Ker Gawler charged the mediaeval legal profession with similar interested motives in his ''Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Phrases and Nursery Rhymes'' (Southampton, 1834). Claiming to trace back the rhyme of Little Jack Horner to its "Low Saxon" origin, he then 'translates' the social criticism he discovers there, and adds an anti-clerical commentary of his own.<ref>Online Archive, [https://www.archive.org/stream/b29309670#page/132/mode/2up/search/Horner p.133]</ref>
Such social criticism was reapplied in earnest to the 20th century in an antiauthoritarian lyric from Danbert Nobacon’s ''The Unfairy Tale'' (1985). The schoolboy Jack Horner is put in the corner for resisting the racist and self-regarding interpretation of history given by his teacher. But eventually, the children rise up to defend him:
{{poemquote| But when the head walked in the children made such a din. They said, "Jack get up, you got to get out, don't let them push you about, you know they'll keep you in that corner till you're dead. Jack get out, don't sell out, don't compromise with Christmas pies. Keep shouting back, you tell 'em Jack, don't swallow none of their crap. Calling Jack Horners everywhere, don't bend to authority which doesn't care, you know they'll keep you in that corner 'till you're dead."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/jack-horner-lyrics-chumbawamba/85d2a3936adf4dc6482568e3002e92af |title=Jack Horner Lyrics – Chumbawamba |publisher=Sing365.com |access-date=2012-11-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120326011353/http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/jack-horner-lyrics-chumbawamba/85d2a3936adf4dc6482568e3002e92af |archive-date=2012-03-26 }}</ref>}}
=="What a good boy am I!"== [[File:Little Jack Horner 1888 game.jpg|thumb|The game of Little Jack Horner, marketed by the McLoughlin Brothers in 1888]]
Jack Horner's opportunism made him a target for adult moralists from the start. At a basic level, the nursery rhyme's hearty celebration of appetite seems an endorsement of greediness. Therefore, it was not long before educators of the young began to rewrite the poem in order to recommend an alternative attitude. In ''The Renowned History of Little Jack Horner'', dating from the 1820s, generous Jack gives his pie to a poor woman on his way to school, and is rewarded with a newly baked pie on his return home. The poem concludes by reversing the picture presented in the original rhyme:
{{poemquote| Now let every good boy, With a sweetmeat or toy, Not slyly sneak into a corner, But to playmates repair And give them a share.<ref>Online archive, [https://archive.org/details/renownedhistoryo00londiala p.16]</ref>}}
The poem was republished later with different illustrations as ''The Amusing History of Little Jack Horner'' (1830–1832),<ref>[https://archive.org/details/amusinghistoryof00littiala Online archive]</ref> and again with different illustrations as ''Park's Amusing History of Little Jack Horner'' (1840).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-PN970_P37_P3_1840-1306|title=Park's amusing history of Little Jack Horner : embellished with coloured engravings|first=Archibald Alexander|last=Park|date=22 August 1840|publisher=London : Printed and published by A. Park, 47, Leonard Street, Finsbury|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Contemporaneously in America, the same recommendation to share with friends was made by Fanny E. Lacy in the first of the expanded ''Juvenile Songs'' of her composition.<ref>HathiTrust, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015096404358;view=1up;seq=1 p.3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117052237/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015096404358;view=1up;seq=1 |date=17 January 2023 }}</ref> Yet another collection of rewritten rhymes published in 1830 featured a Jack Horner who is unable even to spell the word 'pie' (spelled 'pye' in the original version).<ref>''Nursery Rhymes (embellished with engravings)'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=g9sJfZ8sv-QC p.26] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025737/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g9sJfZ8sv-QC&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref> After such an onslaught, it is something of a reformed Jack Horner, harnessed to educational aims, who appears on the Staffordshire Potteries ABC plates of the 1870s<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.rubylane.com/item/319330-AA1436/Antique-ABC-Childx27s-Nursery-Rhyme-Plate |title=Ruby Lane |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928201017/https://www.rubylane.com/item/319330-AA1436/Antique-ABC-Childx27s-Nursery-Rhyme-Plate |url-status=live }}</ref> and 1880s,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.rubylane.com/item/319330-AA1148/Antique-ABC-Plate-Little-Jack-Horner |title=Ruby Lane |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928200956/https://www.rubylane.com/item/319330-AA1148/Antique-ABC-Plate-Little-Jack-Horner |url-status=live }}</ref> as well as on a Mintons tile for the nursery, where the feasting Jack is accompanied by a parental figure carrying keys.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.vitraux.co.uk/product/ref-ant108-antiques-3-victorian-minton-tiles-john-moyr-smith/ant108b/#iLightbox/0 |title=Vitraux Co. |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928201109/http://www.vitraux.co.uk/product/ref-ant108-antiques-3-victorian-minton-tiles-john-moyr-smith/ant108b/#iLightbox/0 |url-status=live }}</ref> There was an educational aim in the card games where Jack Horner figured too. In the American version, originating with the McLoughlin Brothers in 1888, the object was to collect suits in the form of four different varieties of plum in their respective pies.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://allaboutfunandgames.com/mcloughlin-bros-1888-little-jack-horner-game |title=All about fun and games |date=14 January 2014 |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928201147/https://allaboutfunandgames.com/mcloughlin-bros-1888-little-jack-horner-game |url-status=live }}</ref> In De La Rue's ''Little Jack Horner Snap'' (1890), thirteen different nursery rhymes form the suits to be collected.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.wopc.co.uk/delarue/jack-horner-snap |title=The World of Playing Cards |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=29 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929000252/http://www.wopc.co.uk/delarue/jack-horner-snap |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Humour== [[File:Satterfield cartoon about Imperial Japan as Little Jack Horner.jpg|upright=1.1|thumb|Bob Satterfield's cartoon adapts the rhyme to the Japanese naval victory in the Russo-Japanese War]]
Jack Horner's adventures with his pie have frequently been referenced in humorous and political cartoons on three continents. In an 1862 issue of ''Punch'', Abraham Lincoln pulls the captured New Orleans out of his pie.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.historygallery.com/prints/PunchLincoln/1862neworleans/1862neworleans.htm |title=History Gallery |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=18 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191118054741/http://www.historygallery.com/prints/PunchLincoln/1862neworleans/1862neworleans.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In the following century, a copy of the ''Tacoma Times'' pictured a Japanese Jack pulling a battleship from the Russian pie during the Russo-Japanese War.<ref>Adjacent to a lead article headlined [https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1904-03-23/ed-1/seq-1 "Another Russian battleship reported sunk at Port Arthur"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929080041/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1904-03-23/ed-1/seq-1/ |date=29 September 2018 }}</ref> In other contexts, the rhyme was applied to Australian politics in the ''Melbourne Punch'';<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sebraprints.com.au/little-jack-horner-engraving-1860-melbourne-punch.html |title=22 December 1859 |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928200918/http://www.sebraprints.com.au/little-jack-horner-engraving-1860-melbourne-punch.html |url-status=live }}</ref> to a Canadian railway scandal;<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/canadian-illustrated-news-1869-1883/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=1714& |title=''Canadian Illustrated News'' |website=Library and Archives Canada |date=13 June 2013 |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=19 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119093929/https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/canadian-illustrated-news-1869-1883/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=1714& |url-status=live }}</ref> to income tax relief in Ireland;<ref>''Saturday Herald'', [http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000246906 7 April 1927] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928201151/http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000246906 |date=28 September 2018 }}</ref> and to David Lloyd George’s use of his party political fund.<ref>''Punch'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=B8KWBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Apologia+Pro+Pollice+Meo%E2%80%9D&pg=PA27 14 December, 1927] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025841/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B8KWBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=%22Apologia+Pro+Pollice+Meo%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=gIFsKLSZCM&sig=C4Z5NNsBwkbLeAKHqivzvBVHlI4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivyLL-utndAhWKDewKHcIDBBgQ6AEwAnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Apologia%20Pro%20Pollice%20Meo%E2%80%9D&f=false |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref> Other humorous uses of the nursery rhyme include: a comic variation in Guy Wetmore Carryl’s ''Mother Goose for Grown Ups'' (New York, 1900), in which Jack breaks his tooth on a plum stone;<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/mothergooseforgr00carr#page/20/mode/2up pp.21-4], "The Discouraging Discovery of Little Jack Horner"</ref> and one of Lee G. Kratz's ''Humorous Quartets for Men’s Voices'' (Boston, 1905), in which the pie is stolen by a cat.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89096287321;view=1up;seq=32 |title=pp.24-5 |access-date=28 September 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116233916/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89096287321;view=1up;seq=32 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Alternative histories== In the chapbook ''The History of Jack Horner, Containing the Witty Pranks he play'd, from his Youth to his Riper Years, Being pleasant for Winter Evenings'' (mid-18th century), there is a summarised version of the nursery rhyme which Jack himself is said to have composed.<ref>Online archive, [https://archive.org/stream/pleasanthistoryo00londiala#page/2 page 3]</ref> However, it has been observed that the story is based on the much earlier Tudor tale of ''The Fryer and the Boy'', and that this insertion is merely to justify the use of Jack Horner's name. The book's main purpose is to follow its hero's career after he has left childhood behind.<ref name="auto"/>
In the 19th century, a story began to gain currency that the rhyme is actually about Thomas Horner, who was steward to Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury before the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII of England.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y0oAAAAAYAAJ&q=little+jack+horner+abbot&pg=PA83 |title=Notes and queries – Google Boeken |year=1858 |access-date=2012-11-26 |archive-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116233916/https://books.google.com/books?id=y0oAAAAAYAAJ&q=little+jack+horner+abbot&pg=PA83 |url-status=live }}</ref> It is asserted that, prior to the abbey's destruction, the abbot sent Horner to London with a huge Christmas pie which had the deeds to a dozen manors hidden within it as a gift to try to convince the King not to nationalise Church lands. During the journey, Horner opened the pie and extracted the deeds of the manor of Mells in Somerset, which he kept for himself.<ref>C. Roberts, ''Heavy words lightly thrown: the reason behind the rhyme'' (Granta, 2004), p. 3.</ref> It is further suggested that, since the manor properties included lead mines in the Mendip Hills, the plum is a pun on the Latin ''plumbum'', for lead. While records do indicate that Thomas Horner became the owner of the manor, subsequent owners of Mells Manor have asserted that the legend is untrue, and that Wells purchased the deed from the abbey.<ref name="auto"/>
Two later novels provide virtuous heroes named Jack Horner that distance themselves from the nursery character. The first chapter of James Jackson Wray's ''Jack Horner the second'' (London, 1887) criticises the behaviour of the first Jack Horner in order to emphasise the preferable behaviour of his virtuous namesake.<ref>''Jack Horner the second'' at [https://books.google.com/books?id=JicVAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Jack+Horner%22 Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025738/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jack_Horner_the_Second/JicVAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Jack+Horner%22&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref><ref>"Books for Young People", ''The Literary World'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=LjoZAAAAYAAJ&dq=Wray+%22Jack+Horner+the+second%22&pg=PA176 14 February 1888, p. 176] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025737/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Literary_World/LjoZAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Wray+%22Jack+Horner+the+second%22&pg=PA176&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref> The "charming little boy" featured in Mary Spear Tiernan's eponymous ''Jack Horner: A Novel'' (Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1890) is equally contrasting. An American foundling, he is so named from being discovered in the Christmas season.<ref>''Jack Horner: A Novel'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=lL4YAAAAYAAJ p.21] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025738/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jack_Horner/lL4YAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref><ref>Review in ''Book News'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=nBtTAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Jack+Horner:+A+Novel%22&pg=PA333 May 1890, p. 333] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025800/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Book_News/nBtTAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Jack+Horner:+A+Novel%22&pg=PA333&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}</ref>
By the second half of the 20th century, the pendulum had swung back to interpreting versions of Jack Horner as a psychologically damaged character. Commenting on the role of Jacob Horner, the dysfunctional narrator of his novel ''The End of the Road'' (1958), John Barth commented that "he is supposed to remind you first of Little Jack Horner, who also sits in a corner and rationalizes."<ref>David Morrell, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hWU0CwAAQBAJ&dq=Barth+%22Jacob+Horner%22&pg=PT178 ''John Barth: An Introduction'']; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309025738/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/John_Barth/hWU0CwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Barth+%22Jacob+Horner%22&pg=PT178&printsec=frontcover |date=9 March 2023 }}, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976</ref>
In 2022, an adult version of Jack Horner appears as a villain in the Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation movie ''Puss in Boots: The Last Wish''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wiggan |first=Alex |date=2023-01-24 |title=Review: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish |url=https://itsastampede.com/2023/01/24/review-puss-in-boots-the-last-wish/ |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=It's A Stampede! |language=en |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124192237/https://itsastampede.com/2023/01/24/review-puss-in-boots-the-last-wish/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The owner of a pie business, he now calls himself "Big" Jack Horner.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gunn |first=Patrick |date=2023-01-21 |title=John Mulaney's Jack Horner Proves There's Room for Two Iconic Villains in 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' |url=https://collider.com/puss-in-boots-the-last-wish-john-mulaney-jack-horner/ |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=Collider |language=en |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124192236/https://collider.com/puss-in-boots-the-last-wish-john-mulaney-jack-horner/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Bibliography== {{refbegin|colwidth=25em}} * {{cite book |first1=W. S. |last1=Baring-Gould |author1-link=William S. Baring-Gould |first2=C. |last2=Baring-Gould |year=1962 |title=The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery rhymes old and new, arranged and explained |place=New York, NY |publisher=Bramhall House Publishing }} * {{cite book |first1=I. |last1=Opie |first2=P. |last2=Opie |year=1997 |orig-year=1951 |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes |edition=2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=234–237 }} {{refend}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
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Category:18th-century songs Category:Christmas characters Category:English children's songs Category:English folk songs Category:English nursery rhymes Category:Jack tales Category:Songs about children Category:Songs about fictional male characters Category:Songs with unknown songwriters Category:Traditional children's songs Category:Year of song unknown Category:Songs about food and drink