Simple Simon

DESCRIPTION: "Simple Simon met a pieman, Going to the fair, Said Simple Simon to the pieman, Let me taste your ware." The pieman demands payment, which Simon does not have. He tries to catch a whale; he seeks plums on a thorn; he does not succeed
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1764 (chapbook published by Dicey and Marshall, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: food injury fishing money
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 476, "Simple Simon met a pieman" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #60, pp. 68-69, "(Simple Simon met a pieman)"
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 190, "Simple Simon (1 text)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 34, "SImpe Simon Met a Pieman" (1 text)
Roud #19777
NOTES [94 words]: The term "Simple Simon" seems to be very old, but that didn't prevent Katherine Elwes Thomas coming up with a crazy explanation for this rhyme; she suggested (The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 199) that it is an account of James VI moving south to become James I of England. Slightly more probable is Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel's note that St. Simeon of Ermesa was the patron saint of holy fools. On the other hand, neither of my dictionaries of saints mentions a sixth century St. Simeon, so he can't be very well known. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: OO2476

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