Oranges and Lemons

DESCRIPTION: "Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's. You owe me five farthings.... When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey...." "I'm sure I don't know, Says the great bell of Bow." A threat (to chop off a head) may follow
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c.1744 (Tom Thumb's Pretty Song Book, according to Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes)
KEYWORDS: money playparty
FOUND IN: Britain(England(All)) New Zealand
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 392, "Oranges and lemons" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 7, "Oranges and Lemons" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #640, pp. 253-254, "(Gay go up and gay go down)" (a conflate version probably containing material not relevant to the song)
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 146, "Oranges and Lemons" (1 text)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 140, "Oranges and Lemons" (1 text)
Delamar-ChildrensCountingOutRhymes, pp. 100-101, "The Bells of London Town" (1 text)
Sutton-Smith-NZ-GamesOfNewZealandChilden/FolkgamesOfChildren, pp. 31-32, "(Oranges and lemons)" (2 texts)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 4, "(Oranges and lemons)" (1 text, from user John5918, posted August 28, 2021)
DT, ORANGLEM
ADDITIONAL: Tim Devlin, _Cracking Humpty Dumpty: An Investigative Trail of Favorite Nursery Rhymes_, Susak Press, 2022, pp. 101-108, "Oranges and Lemonsl" (1 text plus many variants and alternate sources)
ST BGMG640 (Full)
Roud #13190
NOTES [450 words]: Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes: "Whether or not the terminating lines ['... Here comes a chopper to chop off your head'] have special significance, they do not appear in the song's earliest recording (c.1744)" - BS
Whatever the significance of the song, it appears to have inspired a lot of descendants (several of which are quoted by the Opies). Many folkies will know Idris Davies's "Bells of Rhymney," set to music by Pete Seeger. Eleanor Farjeon (of "Morning Has Broken") fame also used it as a starting point for a song about a memorial for World War I soldiers called "The Children's Bells": "Where are your Oranges? Where are your Lemons? What, are you silent now, Bells of St. Clement's?" For the full text, with background, see Walter de la Mare, Come Hither, revised edition, 1928; #184, "The Children's Bells."
According to Marc Alexander, A Companion to the Folklore, Myths & Customs of Britain, Sutton Publishing, 2002, p. 208, the students at St. Clement Danes Primary School to this day go to what was the church of St. Clement Danes and are given an orange and a lemon following afternoon services.
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel has information about six different churches that may be mentioned in the song. Dolby-OrangesAndLemons says the game is very similar to "London Bridge Is Fallng Down."
Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 240, connects a stanza of this with the reign of Charles II. (Devlin, p. 101, points out that Nell Gwynn was supposedly an orange-seller when Charles II saw her.) But Thomas is generally delusional.
Devlin, p. 103, mentions other suggestions that the reference to chopping off the head refers to one of Henry VIII's wives, either Anne Boleyn or Katherine Howard. But, as we've seen, the head-chopping lyric -- even if it's actually about some particular person -- is probably not an original part of this song.
Devlin, p .102, says that a tune called "Oranges and Lemons" was included in the 1665 edition of Playford's The Dancing Master, but it has no lyrics. I strongly, strongly doubt that the two should be associated; based on the modern transcription I've seen, Playford's tune is a bad fit for these lyrics. It is a dance tune; it even has square-dance-like directions.
Devlin's final conclusion is that, despite all the elaborate hypotheses about this rhyme, it is probably mostly about... church bells. I incline to agree,
Devlin, pp. 107-108, has an interesting and useful table of the various churches and bells, with background on each. One may disagree with some of his interpretations, but it is probably the most useful commentary on the list that I have seen. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: BGMG640

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