If I Had a Donkey

DESCRIPTION: "If I had a donkey that wouldn't go, Do you think I'd wallop him? No, no, no.... I'd put him in the barn and give him some corn, The best little donkey that ever was born." Some versions tell of cruelty to animals and Bill Burns getting in trouble for it
AUTHOR: unknown (modified version by Jacob Beuler)
EARLIEST DATE: 1937 (Henderson-VictorianStreetBallads); the Pitts broadside presumably was existence in the early nineteenth century (Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes); the Beuler version is from 1822
KEYWORDS: animal food warning trial
FOUND IN: Britain(England) Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 141, "If I had a donkey that wouldn't go" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 142, "If I had a donkey that wouldn't go" (2 texts)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #830, p. 309, "(If I had a donkey, and he wouldn't go)"
Henderson-VictorianStreetBallads, pp. 76-77, "If I had a Donkey Wot Wouldn't Go" (1 text, based on the Beuler version)
ADDITIONAL: Leslie Shepard, _John Pitts, Ballad Printer of Seven Dials, London 1765-1844_, Private Library Association, 1969, p. 121, "If I Had a Donkey WOt Wouldn't Go" (reprint of a Pitts broadside)
Roud #19735
NOTES [62 words]: According to the Opies, this began as a nursery rhyme with only a few lines. Jacob Beuler heard the rhyme, and, acknowledging their use, wrote a song about the effects of the 1822 British "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act." I have no real evidence that the Beuler text is traditional, but I'm citing it here because everyone seems to cite the two pieces together. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: HenV076

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