Two Legs Sat Upon Three Legs

DESCRIPTION: Riddle: "Two legs sat upon three legs, With one leg in his lap; In comes four legs, And runs away with one leg; Up jumps two legs, Catches up three legs, Throws it after four legs, And makes him bring back one leg."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1600 (Booke of merry Riddles, according to the Opies)
KEYWORDS: riddle food animal dog
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 302, "Two Legs Sat Upon Three Legs (1 text)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #709, p. 276, "(Two legs sat upon three legs)"
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 186, "Two Legs Sat Upon Three Legs" (1 text)
Roud #20142
NOTES [151 words]: The Opies note that describing characters by their number of legs goes all the way back to the Riddle of the Sphinx in the Theban legend. They also notef a faintly similar tag in a writing attributed, almost certainly falsely, to the Venerable Bede: "See, a biped on top of a triped sits; walks the biped; falls the triped." It is easy to see why people connect them, but I think the only actual link is the idea of counting legs.
The incomparable Katherine Elwes Thomas, The Real Personages of Mother Goose, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, p. 214, has an explanation for her version: "Two Legs" is Jenny Giles, a Presbyterian who was angered when Charles I's Archbishop Laud tried to impose Anglican practices on Scotland. Giles was historical, but the connection has as much truth as any other Thomas idea: i.e. it's just barely possible, but it's much more possible that Thomas was delusional. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: OO2302

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