The Man in the Moon (nursery rhyme)
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"The Man in the Moon" is an English-language nursery rhyme with the Roud Folk Song Index number of 19744. It was first published in 1784 in Gammer Gurton's Garland, a collection edited by the antiquary Joseph Ritson, and has often been reprinted. It was adapted and parodied by George MacDonald and J. R. R. Tolkien.
From Gammer Gurton's Garland:[1]
The man in the moon
Came tumbling down,
And ask'd his way to Norwich.
He went by the south,
And burnt his mouth,
With supping hot pease porridge.
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From Songs for the Nursery:[2]
The man in the moon
Came down too soon,
To ask his way to Norwich;
The man in the south,
He burnt his mouth,
With eating cold plum-porridge.
Background
The man in the Moon is a character with a long history. He figures in medieval folklore as a peasant who has been banished to the Moon as a punishment for stealing thorns or brushwood.[3] He is the subject of one of the Middle English Harley Lyrics, "Mon in the mone stond and strit", dating from c. 1300.[4] He is also mentioned in Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, in Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream,[3] in two old English ballads, and in a Jacobite song.[5] Not satisfied with this source material, Katherine Elwes Thomas, an American writer described by one modern commentator as "incomprehensibly imaginative",[3] interpreted the nursery rhyme as a commentary on the later career of the 16th century Scottish political figure Lord Bothwell.[6]
Publication history
It is not known when the nursery rhyme was composed, although one 19th-century writer suggested that a clue might be found in the rhyme's mention, in some versions at any rate, of plum porridge, a once-popular dish superseded by plum pudding when the advent of modern cloth made its preparation possible.[7] "The Man in the Moon" was first published in 1784 by the antiquary Joseph Ritson in his collection Gammer Gurton's Garland.[5] Only one copy of this first edition survives.[8] A text of the nursery rhyme with significant differences from Ritson's appeared in Songs for the Nursery (1805),[5] and the rhyme was included in many other 19th-century collections.[9]
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Settings
"The Man in the Moon" is traditionally sung to a tune identified by the musicologist Frank Kidson as that of a 16th or 17th century song called "Thomas I Cannot".[10] It has also been published with scores by Frederick W. Mills (as a vocal lancers)[11] and James William Elliott.[12]
