There Was a Crooked Man

DESCRIPTION: "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile, He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, And they all lived together in a little crooked house."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Halliwell, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: home animal
FOUND IN: US(MW) Ireland
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, "(There was a crooked man)" (1 text)
McIntosh-FolkSongsAndSingingGamesofIllinoisOzarks, p. 107, "(There was a crooked man)" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 324, "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #224, p. 148, "(There was a crooked man)"
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 202, "There Was a Crooked Man" (1 text)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 35, "There Was a Crooked Man" (1 text)
Delamar-ChildrensCountingOutRhymes, p. 156, "The Crooked Man" (1 text)
Roud #4826
NOTES [108 words]: The Baring-Goulds, Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, and Dolby-OrangesAndLemons all suggest that the crooked man of this song was the Covenanter Alexander Leslie, and the crooked sixpence Charles I (who was willing to use the Covenanters if it would preserve his throne but had no real use for them). This is another of those "possible but hardly demonstrable" cases. The suggestion appears to go back to the inimitable Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 212. It should be kept in mind that Thomas never produced any evidence for any of her flights of fancy, and most are extremely improbable. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: BGMG224

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography