"1970s, American stand-up comedian George Carlin offered this alternative: <poem>Old King Cole was a merry old soul<br> And a merry old soul was he;<br>He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl -<br> I guess we all know about Old King Cole...</poem> Carlin's intonation of the final line suggested that the pipe and bowl should be interpreted as marijuana references. In political cartoons and similar material, especially in Great Britain, sometimes Old King ""Coal"" has been used to symbolize the coal industry. Old King Cole ""Old King Cole"" is a British nursery rhyme first attested in 1708. Though"
"Three Jolly Rogues Three Jolly Rogues is an English folk song. A miller, a weaver and a tailor lived in King Arthur's time (or in ""Good Old Colonial times""). They were thrown out because they could not sing. All three were thieves. They are suitably punished. The earliest complete text is a broadside in the Bodleian Library, dated 1804, ""The Miller Weaver and Little Tailor"". It is also known as ""In Good King Arthur's Days"". The song is quoted by Thomas Hardy in ""Under the Greenwood Tree"". It is known in the USA from the early nineteenth century, usually as"
"The Miller's Three Sons ""The Miller's Three Sons"" (Roud 138, Laws Q21) is an English folk song. It was published as a broadside in the middle of the 18th century CE, but no more recent printings are known. It was ""reasonably widespread in England but hugely popular in North America"". A miller has three ""lusty"" sons. On his deathbed he questions them to decide which should inherit his mill. He asks each how much flour they will take from the grain brought to the mill by farmers to be ground. The eldest says he will take one peck out of"
"Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling, My Son John ""Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling, My Son John"" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19709. The most commonly used modern version is: Alternate versions include: The rhyme is first recorded in ""The Newest Christmas Box"" published in London around 1797. It may be derived from 'Diddle, diddle, diddle Dumpling', a traditional street cry of hot dumpling sellers. The rhyme was used in the refrain of the song ""Nursery Rhyme,"" written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, from The Archies' 1969 album Jingle Jangle. 4. BBC 'Inside number"
"who consulted all the fish and sent him on to the third sister, who consulted all the birds and found an eagle who could help him. The eagle sent him in to steal three crumbs of bread, three hairs from a man who snored, who proved to be Farmer Weathersky himself, a stone, and three chips of wood, and to use the crumbs to catch a hare. They were chased by a flock of crows, but the father threw down the hairs, and they turned to ravens that drove them off. Then Farmer Weathersky himself came after them, and the"
"The Fisherman and his Flute The fisherman and his flute appears among Aesop’s Fables and is numbered 11 in the Perry Index. Wide variations on the theme have existed over the centuries. In Classical times the fable only appears in Greek sources, most notably in the Histories of Herodotus, where Cyrus the Younger applies it to Greek envoys who submit to him too late. It tells of a fisherman piping to the fish to make them dance. When they will not oblige, he catches them in a net and mocks their death agonies: “Silly creatures, you would not dance for"
"found under a variety of names, including ""The Three Butchers"", ""Johnson-Jinkson"", ""Dixon and Johnson"", and ""Bold Johnson"". Lyle Lofgren criticizes Francis James Child for omitting the ballad from his collection and therefore stalling scholarly attention. Even though academics were ignoring the song, folk singers in England and America pared the song down to two butchers and half as many robbers and continued to both play the song and print it in stall ballads of the nineteenth century. By the time the song made it to the southern United States, it had been pared down to one hero, three robbers, and"
"in the detail of dancing to the pipe, in Jesus’ parable of the children playing in the market-place who cry to each other, “We piped for you and you would not dance; we wept and wailed and you would not mourn” (Matthew 11.16-17, Luke 7.31-2). There is an echo here too of the criticism of unresponsive behaviour found in Herodotus. In Mediaeval times a story about a peasant who really had the power to charm fishes to the shore with his harp-playing appeared in the ""Gesta Romanorum"", while dancing fishes figure in a fable by Ivan Krylov. There the king"
"""In Good Old Colony Days"" or ""In Good Old Colony Times."" Three Jolly Rogues Three Jolly Rogues is an English folk song. A miller, a weaver and a tailor lived in King Arthur's time (or in ""Good Old Colonial times""). They were thrown out because they could not sing. All three were thieves. They are suitably punished. The earliest complete text is a broadside in the Bodleian Library, dated 1804, ""The Miller Weaver and Little Tailor"". It is also known as ""In Good King Arthur's Days"". The song is quoted by Thomas Hardy in ""Under the Greenwood Tree"". It is"
"and Fiddler, however, the Big Bad Wolf and his three sons are stalking them. The Wolf dresses in drag, this time as Little Bo Peep and sadly tells the pigs that he/she lost his/her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. Then the pigs discover the ""sheep"" (the Wolf's three sons in disguise) and the Wolf and his sons, still in disguise, run home to their cave, and the pigs follow. The Wolf then locks the door and swallows the key. At first, the pigs embarrassedly think that ""Bo Peep"" has romantic intentions (a rather unusual scene; ""Why, Bo"
"9' TV episode with the same name Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling, My Son John ""Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling, My Son John"" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19709. The most commonly used modern version is: Alternate versions include: The rhyme is first recorded in ""The Newest Christmas Box"" published in London around 1797. It may be derived from 'Diddle, diddle, diddle Dumpling', a traditional street cry of hot dumpling sellers. The rhyme was used in the refrain of the song ""Nursery Rhyme,"" written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, from The Archies' 1969"
"rhyme has, naturally, appeared in children's television. For example, it was sung on the television show ""Barney & Friends"", but with the last few lyrics simplified (which were also adjusted for the drummer and trumpeter verses): <poem>Dance with the fiddlers, Dance with the fiddlers Dance with the fiddlers three.</poem> It has also been used repeatedly in ""Sesame Street"", using the fiddlers as a way to illustrate principles of basic addition (with Ernie taking the role of Old King Cole), and again with William Wegman's dogs on the show (with Chundo as Old King Cole). Pop singer Nat ""King"" Cole (actual"
"Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. All night long their nets they threw To the stars in the twinkling foam — Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe, Bringing the fishermen home; 'Twas all so pretty a sail As if it could not be, And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed Of sailing that beautiful sea — But I shall name you the fishermen three: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, And Nod is a little head, And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies Is a wee one's trundle-bed. So shut your"
"call his name, Tritill, if he needed help, and the same with the second, Litill, and he crumbed some of his bread for the birds, who also told him to call for help. He found the same cave and realized from bones and scraps of cloth that it was an ogress's lair, but remained. When she set him to sweep the floor, he called on Tritill, who did it for him. The next day, the ogress set him to spread the feathers from her pillows to dry them and put them all back. He spread them out, a breeze carried"
"Then the stranger asked the fiddler, ""Won't you play the rest for me?"" ""Don't know it,"" says the fiddler. ""Play it for yourself!"" says he. Then the stranger took the fiddle, with a riddy-diddle-diddle, And the strings began to tingle at the jingle of the bow, While the old man sat and listened, and his eyes with pleasure glistened, As he shouted, ""Hallelujah! And hurray for Joe!"" </poem> <poem> Oh, there was a little boy and his name was Bo, Went out into the woods when the moon was low, And he met an old bear who was hungry for"
"moost of synne and harlotries. Wel koude he stelen corn, and tollen thries; And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee. The Miller's Three Sons ""The Miller's Three Sons"" (Roud 138, Laws Q21) is an English folk song. It was published as a broadside in the middle of the 18th century CE, but no more recent printings are known. It was ""reasonably widespread in England but hugely popular in North America"". A miller has three ""lusty"" sons. On his deathbed he questions them to decide which should inherit his mill. He asks each how much flour they will take"
"bell, rung to summon recruits for its absent lord Sir Daniel Brackley, to join the Battle of Risingham; at which the outlaw ""fellowship"" known as ""the Black Arrow"" begins to strike with its ""four black arrows"" for the ""four black hearts"" of Brackley and three of his retainers: Nicholas Appleyard, Bennet Hatch, and Sir Oliver Oates, the parson. The rhyme posted in explanation of this attack, makes the protagonist Richard ('Dick') Shelton, ward of Sir Daniel, curious about the death of his father Sir Harry Shelton. Having been dispatched to Kettley, where Sir Daniel was quartered, and sent to Tunstall"
"Fiddler, and the Witch drags the Goose-Girl inside. Enter the Fiddler, followed by the Woodcutter and the Broom-maker, emissaries from the nearby town who have come to parley with the Witch. (Self-referential moment: when the Broom-maker knocks at the door and asks the Witch if she would like to buy a broom, we hear the ""Broom"" motif from Humperdinck's ""Hansel and Gretel"".) After much hemming and hawing from the Woodcutter and Broom-maker, the Fiddler explains why they are there: the city fathers, proud of their wealth and affluence, want the wise woman to identify a king to lead them. The"
"The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack ""The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack"" is a fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. The original German name is ""Tischlein deck dich, Goldesel und Knüppel aus dem Sack"". A tailor had three sons who were all fed by the milk of their goat. The oldest son was given the task to let the animal graze at the finest grass fields. At the end of the day the son asked the goat whether it had eaten enough and the animal confirmed this. However, when they returned home the"
"on their self-titled 2010 release, but each giving their own rendering. The village museum in Clovelly, where Kingsley was inspired to write the poem, features a life-sized model of Kingsley sitting at a desk writing the poem. When visitors enter the room, a motion sensor triggers a voice recording of the poem, read by actor and village resident Joss Ackland. Three Fishers ""Three Fishers"" is a poem and a ballad written in 1851. The original poem was written by English poet, novelist and preacher, Charles Kingsley. It was first set to music by English composer John Hullah shortly thereafter. Robert"
"irregular tetrameters. The text above is based on the poem as it appears in Teasdale's 1920 collection ""Flame and Shadow"". The original 1918 publication in Harper's Magazine includes slight differences: ""swallows calling"" / ""wild-plum trees"" / ""bird nor tree,"" (added comma). The poem is quoted, (lines 10 and 12) by the main character, in the 2016 film ""The Forest"". The poem is also notably featured in Ray Bradbury's short story of the same name. In the video game Fallout 3, a Mister Handy Robot recites this poem for the long dead children of the family he belonged to, the robot"
"Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ""Matthew, Mark, Luke and John"", also known as the ""Black Paternoster"", is an English language prayer and nursery rhyme traditionally said by children as they go to bed. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 1704. It may have origins in ancient Babylonian prayers and was being used in a Christian version in late Medieval Germany. The earliest extant version in English can be traced to the mid-sixteenth century. It was mentioned by English Protestant writers as a ""popish"" or magical charm. It is related to other prayers, including a ""Green"" and ""White"
"Gotham are recalled in a popular nursery rhyme with a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19695, an adaptation of the tale ""Three Sailors of Gotham"". The lyrics are: <poem>Three wise men of Gotham, They went to sea in a bowl, And if the bowl had been stronger My song would have been longer.</poem> The rhyme was first recorded in ""Mother Goose's Melody"" published around 1765, and from then appeared in many collections. Reminded of the foolish ingenuity of Gotham's residents, Washington Irving gave the name ""Gotham"" to New York City in his ""Salmagundi Papers"" (1807). The most notable use"
"Three Blind Mice ""Three Blind Mice"" is an English-language nursery rhyme and musical round. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3753. The modern words are: Published by Frederick Warne & Co., an illustrated children's book by John W. Ivimey entitled ""The Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice"", fleshes the mice out into mischievous characters who seek adventure, eventually being taken in by a farmer whose wife chases them from the house and into a bramble bush, which blinds them. Soon after, their tails are removed by ""the butcher's wife"" when the complete version incorporates the original"
"some admiration after winning a fight with a school bully (Dan Reese) who had insulted his mother and Faith Meredith (second oldest of the Meredith clan). Walter and his siblings (along with the Meredith children who lived in the neighbouring house) spent many hours playing in a hollow called Rainbow Valley, which was located near Ingleside. It was there that Walter had a prophetic vision of World War I, daydreaming of (and later insisting that he actually saw) a Piper who used the call of his pipe to sweep the children away. The idea of the piper calling the boys"
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee Tweedledum and Tweedledee are fictional characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's ""Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There"". Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people who look and act in identical ways, generally in a derogatory context. Common versions of the nursery rhyme include: The words ""Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee"" make their first appearance in print in ""one of"
"Little Tommy Tucker ""Little Tommy Tucker"" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19618. Common modern versions include: The earliest recorded version of this rhyme is from ""Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book"" (c. 1744), which has only four lines. The full version was produced in ""Mother Goose's Melody"" (c. 1765). There are references to various parts of the rhyme in earlier works. To 'sing for one's supper' was a proverbial phrase by the seventeenth century. ""An excellent new Medley"" (c. 1620) included the line 'Tom would eat meat but wants a knife'."
"The Ass and his Masters The Ass (sometimes 'donkey') and his Masters is a fable that has also gone by the alternative titles The ass and the gardener and Jupiter and the ass. Included among Aesop's Fables, it is numbered 179 in the Perry Index. The fable only appears in Greek sources in classical times. There an ass in the employ of a gardener complains to the king of the gods that he is not fed adequately and asks for a change of master. He is transferred to a potter and prays for another change because the loads are so"
"the tune are ""Danny Boy"" (""Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling""), written by English lawyer Frederic Edward Weatherly in 1910, and set to the tune in 1913. The first lyrics to be sung to the music were, ""The Confession of Devorgilla"", otherwise known as ""Oh! shrive me, father"". The first writer, after Petrie's publication, to set verses to the tune was Alfred Perceval Graves, in the late 1870s. His song was entitled ""Would I Were Erin's Apple Blossom o'er You"". Graves later stated ""that setting was, to my mind, too much in the style of church music,"
"to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. ""What! No soap?"" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots. This introduced the nonsense term ""The Grand Panjandrum"" into the English language and the name was"
"help him. The boys must go through a series of tasks before being named. The three of them had to sit all night holding a pot of milk. Milk is a sacred drink used for important events. Whoever had all their milk still in the pot by morning would be king. The youngest son dropped the milk and begged his older brothers to give him some of theirs, they did. When morning came the eldest son dropped a little more. When God and the Mukama came to observe the pots, the eldest son was named after the peasants who are"
"men come out o' the west their fortunes for to try,"" ""And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die,"" ""They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head,"" ""Til these three men were satisfied John Barleycorn was dead."" </poem> Earlier versions resemble Burns's only in personifying the barley, and sometimes in having the barley be foully treated or murdered by various artisans. Burns' version, however, omits their motives. In an early seventeenth century version, the mysterious kings of Burns's version were in fact ordinary men laid low by drink, who sought their"
"went out to bring his goats to pasture and ordered the son to clean out the stables and to not go into any of the rooms about the one where he slept. The son disobeys and finds three pots bubbling with no fire, and one turns things into copper, the second into silver, and the third into gold. Past them, he finds, in one room, the Master Maid. She warns him that cleaning the stables as ordinary people do causes ten shovelfuls to fly back in for every one he takes out, but if he shovels with the handle, he"