| "Ladybird, Ladybird" | |
|---|---|
 Illustration of the rhyme in Hunter Valley Gardens, Australia | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | c. 1744 |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Ladybird, Ladybird" is the first line of an English-language nursery rhyme that also has German analogues. It is included in the Roud Folk Song Index as number of 16215.
This traditional verse relates to ladybirds, brightly coloured insects commonly viewed as lucky. The English version has been dated to at least 1744, when it appeared in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Songbook Vol. 2.[1] The verse has several popular forms, including:
A shorter, grimmer version concludes:
The child who hides may also be named Nan, Anne and Little Anne and she has hidden under a "warming pan", "porridge pan", "frying pan" or even a "pudding pan".[2] Alternatively, her name may be Aileen and her hiding place a "soup tureen".[3] A widely varying Peterborough version makes the remaining child a boy:
The insect goes by a variety of other names in British dialect rhymes. One Yorkshire version recorded in 1842 begins “Ladycow, Ladycow, ply thy way home”,[5] while Charlotte Brontë calls it a “lady-clock”.[6] In Scotland a rhyme from the same period is recorded as
American names include “ladybug”, first recorded in 1699,[8] although the equivalent rhyme is not mentioned until the 19th century, as in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).[9] Also in the US, doodlebugs are substituted for ladybugs and are exhorted to “Come out of your hole”.[10]
The name ladybird contains a reference to Mary, mother of Jesus, often referred to as Our Lady, a convention that occurs in other European cultures where the insect is similarly addressed. In Germany it is the Marienkäfer, where a nursery rhyme runs “Marybug, fly away, your house is on fire, your wee mother weeps” (Marienkäferchen, fliege weg! Dein Haüschen brennt, Dein Mutterchen flennt).[11] In a similar rhyme it is addressed as Himmelsküchlichen: “Sky-winger, fly away, your house is in flames, your children together in tears” (Deiner Kinder weinen alle miteinander).[12] In Sweden the religious connection was maintained by calling the insect Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga (Virgin Mary's keyholder), but with a slightly different rhyme.[13]
Because of the religious connotation of such names, one speculation would date the rhyme back to the 16th century and have it sung as a warning at a time when there was legislation against Catholics.[14] Another connects it with a story that after prayers for help Our Lady brought the insect to destroy a plague of plant-destroying pests. According to other lore, farmers recite the rhyme to save the insects who do them this service before setting fire to stubble fields. Among children, it is common to place the ladybird on their hand or blow it from their clothing and make a wish while reciting the rhyme.[15]
A literary variation on the rhyme was written by Mrs Southey early in the 19th century[16] and appeared in an 1827 issue of Blackwood's Magazine.[17] This was a poem beginning
and continuing with much the same formula and similar natural details for a further eight stanzas. The poem, or excerpted stanzas from it, went on to appear in various publications through the next century and beyond. One stanza was also included at the head of an unpublished poem by Emily Brontë on a completely different subject.[18]