Little Nancy Etticoat

DESCRIPTION: Riddle: "Little Nancy Etticoat (Nanny Goat, Hetty Cote), With a white petticoat, And a red nose; She has no hands or feet; The longer she stands, The shorter she grows." Probable answer: A lighted candle
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Halliwell); a manuscript version is thought to date from c. 1645, according to the Opies
KEYWORDS: riddle nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 373, "Little Nancy Etticoat" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #700, p. 275, "(Little Nancy Etticoat)"
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 185, "Little Nancy Etticoat" (1 text)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, Joseph D. Clark, "More North Carolina Riddles," Vol. IX, No. 1 (Jul 1961), p. 12 (#17), "(Little Nannie Etticoat in her white petticoat and red nose)" (1 text)
Roud #20055
NOTES [138 words]: Although this doesn't seem to be well known in folk circles today, it was famous enough in the last century that J. R. R. Tolkien rewrote it in Old English; in this version, Nancy Etticoat becomes Hild Hunecan, who wears a white tunic (tunecan). See J. R. R. Tolkien, The Annotated Hobbit, annotated by Douglas A. Anderson, second edition, Houghton Mifflin, 2002, pp. 123-125, n. 19.
According to Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader's Guide, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, that piece was published in the 1923 Leeds English School publication "A Northern Venture," in an article titled "Enigma Saxonica Nuper Inventa Duo" ("Two Saxon Riddles Newly Discovered"). The other riddle was a version of "In marble halls as white as milk."
For related material, see "Little Miss Nancy." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: OO2373

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