Three Little Kittens

DESCRIPTION: Mother cat says the kittens can't have pie because they have lost their mittens. When they find the mittens they put them on to eat pie and soil them. They wash the mittens and hang them out to dry. They smell a rat close by.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (New Nursery Songs, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: food animal humorous clothes
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 289, "Three little kittens they lost their mittens" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #815, pp. 303-304, "(Three little kittens they lost their mittens)"
Brown-MyGrandmothersSongbook 9, "The Three Little Kittens" (1 text, 1 tune)
Delamar-ChildrensCountingOutRhymes, pp. 178-179, "Three Little Kittens" (1 text)
Roud #16150
NOTES [139 words]: Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes: "The tune is a variant of "The Seven Joys of Mary." - BS
The Opies and the Baring-Goulds note that these lines are sometimes attributed to Eliza Follen, author of New Nursery Songs for All Good Children, but her notes call the piece traditional. The book (which the Opies date c. 1843) does however seem to be the earliest printing.
Some of the popularity of this piece may be artificial; it was found in at least one Sunday School songbook in the nineteenth century: Marguerite Cook, editor, Primary Songs No. 2 ("For the Primary Class in he Sabbath School And for use in the Home, the Kindergarten, And Day School"), copyright 1894. Of course, this is so dreadful a book that, had I been a child confronted with it, I would have forgotten everything in it as quickly as possibly. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: OO2289

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