Tweedledum and Tweedledee

DESCRIPTION: "Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle, For Tweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew by a monstrous crow, As (big/black) as a tar-barrel, Which frightened both the heroes so, They quite forgot their quarrell."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1805 (Harris, Original Ditties for the Nursery, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: battle bird
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 521, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #167, p. 125, "(Tweedledum and Tweedledee)"
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 222, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Iona Opie, _Ditties for the Nursery_, Oxford University Press, 1954, 1959 (new edition of "Original Ditties for the Nursery," c. 1805), p. 53, "The Quarrel" (1 text)
Roud #19800
NOTES [73 words]: Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes reports that John Byrom (or Swift, or Pope, or SOMEONE) coined the names "Tweedledum" and "Tweedledee" to describe the composers Bononcini and Handel in a quarrel where outsiders couldn't tell which side was which. But this does not explain how the two became characters in this poem. It does not seem to have been particularly well-known -- until, of course, Lewis Carroll got his hands on it. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: OO2521

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