"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" by Goodridge

"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" is a popular English nursery rhyme. The rhyme has been seen as having religious and historical significance, but its origins and meaning are disputed. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19626.

The most common modern version is:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

The oldest known version was first published in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (c. 1744) with the following lyrics:

Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
And so my garden grows.

Several printed versions of the eighteenth century have the lyrics:

Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
Sing cuckolds all in a row.

The last line has the most variation including:

Cowslips all in a row.

and

With lady bells all in a row.

Jack and Jill Silhouette

A silhouette pattern of Jack and Jill, rudimentary and charming.

"Tom, Tom the Piper's Son" by Goodridge

A Modern Version of this rhyme:

Tom, Tom, the piper's son,

Stole a pig, and away did run;

The pig was eat

And Tom was beat,

And Tom went crying [or "roaring", or "howling", in some versions]

Down the street.

       The 'pig' mentioned in the song is almost certainly not a live animal but rather a kind of pastry, often made with an apple filling, smaller than a pie.

      Another version of the rhyme is: Tom, Tom, the piper's son, Stole a pig, and away he run. Tom run here, Tom run there, Tom run through the village square.

      This rhyme is often conflated with a separate and longer rhyme:

Tom, he was a piper's son,

He learnt to play when he was young,

And all the tune that he could play

Was 'over the hills and far away';

Over the hills and a great way off,

The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

Tom with his pipe made such a noise,

That he pleased both the girls and boys,

They all stopped to hear him play,

'Over the hills and far away'.

Tom with his pipe did play with such skill

That those who heard him could never keep still;

As soon as he played they began for to dance,

Even the pigs on their hind legs would after him prance.

As Dolly was milking her cow one day,

Tom took his pipe and began to play;

So Dolly and the cow danced 'The Cheshire Round',

Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground.

He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,

He used his pipe and she used her legs;

She danced about till the eggs were all broke,

She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.

Tom saw a cross fellow was beating an ass,

Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;

He took out his pipe and he played them a tune,

And the poor donkey's load was lightened full soon.

      Both rhymes were first printed separately in a Tom the Piper's Son, a chapbook produced around 1795 in London. The origins of the shorter and better known rhyme are unknown. The second longer rhyme was an adaptation of an existing verse which was current in England around the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. The following verse, known as "The distracted Jockey's Lamentations" may have been written (but not included) in Thomas D'Urfey's play The Campaigners (1698):

Jockey was a Piper's Son,

And fell in love when he was young;

But all the Tunes that he could play,

Was, o'er the Hills, and far away,

And 'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

The Wind has blown my Plad away.

      This verse seems to have been adapted for a recruiting song designed to gain volunteers for the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns about 1705, with the title "The Recruiting Officer; or The Merry Volunteers", better today known as "Over the Hills and Far Away", in which the hero is called Tom.

"Hey Diddle Diddle" by Goodridge

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,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.

Older versions of the nursery rhyme use "craft" instead of "sport" to maintain the rhyming scheme of AABCCB. In more recent versions the archaic 'sport' is replaced with 'fun' or 'a sight'.

Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon,
The little Dog laughed
To see such craft,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.

      The book comments:"It must be a little dog that laugh'd, for a great dog would be ashamed to laugh at such nonsense." 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.

      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). 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'. Most scholarly commentators consider these unproven and that the verse is probably meant to be simply nonsense. 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).