Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (I)

DESCRIPTION: Tom, "the piper's son, Stole a pig and away did run." He eats the pig, he is beaten, and runs crying or roaring down the street.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1810 (Ritson)
KEYWORDS: punishment theft animal
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond)) Canada(Ont) US(Ap)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 509, "Tom, Tom, the piper's son" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #126, p. 105, "(Tom, Tom, the piper's son)" (1 text)
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 217, "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1 text, in the notes to "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (II)")
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 149, "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1 text plus a fragment of "O'er the Hills and Far Away (I)")
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, F. Eileen Bleakney, "Folk-Lore from Ottawa and Vicinity," Vol. XXXI, No. 120 (Apr-Jun 1918), #18 p. 166 ("Tom, Tom, the piper's son") (1 text)
MidwestFolklore, Frances Boshears, "Granddaddy Roberts," Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1953), p. 152, "(Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Joseph Ritson, Gammer Gurton's Garland (London, 1810 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 35, ("Tom Thumb the piper's son") (1 text)
Elizabeth Mary Wright, "Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore" (London, 1913), pp. 119-120, ("Tom, Tom, the baker's son") (1 text)
Roud #19621
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (II)" (lyrics)
NOTES [212 words]: The Wright text is from Lincolnshire: "Tom, Tom, the baker's son. Stole a wig, and away he run; The wig was eat, and Tom was beat, And Tom went roaring down the street." Wright explains that "a wig (in gen. dial. use) is a kind of cake or bun, a plain wig is a bun without currants, .... The ordinary version substitutes 'pig' for 'wig', and makes Tom's father a 'piper'. It is a question for textual critics to settle, but natural sequence of idea and detail is on the side of the 'wig'-version being the original one; and it is easy to see how in a literary nursery, authority would say that the most omnivorous of small boys coud not eat a periwig, and therefore the word must be pig. This change once made, Tom's father becomes a piper for the sake of alliteration, rather than because there is any historical connexion between a piper and a pig." - BS
A textual critic generally looks for the reading which more easily could be corrupted into one of the others -- and Young Tom might have had some trouble carrying off a whole pig. A wig=bun would at least be easier of transport. So I don't think it can be absolutely settled. Indeed, some textual critics of the more radical sort might propose an emendation -- perhaps "fig" rather than either "pig" or "wig." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: OO2509

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