{{short description|Traditional song}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox song | name = Little Robin Redbreast | cover = | alt = | type = Nursery rhyme | written = | published = 1744 | writer = Unknown | composer = | lyricist = }} thumb|An illustration for the rhyme from ''The Only True Mother Goose Melodies'' (1833) {{Portal |Children's literature}}
'''‘Little Robin Redbreast’''' is an English language nursery rhyme, chiefly notable as evidence of the way traditional rhymes are changed and edited. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20612.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S303787 | title=Roud Folksong Index S303787 Little Robin Redbreast came to visit me | publisher=English Folk Dance and Song Society | work=Vaughan Williams Memorial Library | accessdate=May 20, 2016}}</ref>
== Lyrics == This rhyme is one of the most varied English nursery rhymes, probably because of its crude early version. Common modern versions include:
{| !Words!!Fingerplay |- |<poem> :Little Robin Redbreast :Sat upon a rail; :Niddle noddle went his head, :Wiggle waggle went his tail.<ref name=Opie1997/> </poem> |style="padding-left:3em;"|<poem> Right hand extended in shape of a bird poised on extended forefinger of left hand. Little finger of right hand waggles from side to side. </poem> |}
:Little Robin Redbreast :Came to visit me; :This is what he whistled, :Thank you for my tea.<ref name=Opie1997>I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 371-2.</ref>
and:
:Little Robin Redbreast :Sat upon a tree, :Up went the Pussy-Cat, :And down went he; :Down came Pussy-Cat, :Away Robin ran, :Says little Robin Redbreast— :Catch me if you can.
:Little Robin Redbreast jumped upon a wall, :Pussy-Cat jumped after him, and almost got a fall. :Little Robin chirped and sung, and what did pussy say? :Pussy-Cat said Mew, mew mew,—and Robin jumped away.<ref>Anon, ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28687/28687-h/28687-h.htm#titletext The Only True Mother Goose Melodies]'' (Munroe and Francis: Boston MA, 1833), p. 14.</ref>
==Origins== The earliest versions of this rhyme reveal a more basic humour. The earliest recorded is from ''Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book'' (1744), which has the lyric:
:Little Robin Red breast, :Sitting on a pole, :Niddle, Noddle, :Went his head, :And poop<ref>the meaning of this word subsequently changed, towards the start of the 20th century</ref> went his Hole.<ref name=Opie1997/>
By the late eighteenth century the last line was being rendered 'And wag went his tail,' and other variations were used in nineteenth-century children's books, in one of the clearest cases of bowdlerisation in nursery rhymes.<ref name=Opie1997/>
==Fingerplay== The rhyme has been used as a fingerplay. A version from 1920 included instructions with the lyrics:
:Little Robin Redbreast :Sat upon a rail, :(Right hand extended in shape of a bird is poised on extended forefinger of left hand.) :Niddle noddle went his head, :And waggle went his tail. :(Little finger of right hand waggles from side to side.)<ref>W. B. Forbush, H. T. Wade, W. J. Baltzell, R. Johnson, and D. E. Wheeler, ed., [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25359/25359-h/25359-h.htm#ROBIN ''Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I''] (New York, NY: University Society, 1920), p. 10.</ref>
==Notes== {{Reflist}} {{authority control}}
Category:English folk songs Category:English children's songs Category:Traditional children's songs Category:Songs about birds Category:Songs about cats Category:1744 songs Category:Finger plays Category:English nursery rhymes Category:Fictional birds Category:Songs with unknown songwriters