Behind the Meaning of the Crooked Nursery Rhyme “There Was a Crooked Man”

The thing about human beings is that we’re all flawed. No one is perfect, no one is infallible. We are all in this thing called life together not as finished products but as learning, seeking beings that are just trying to make things work.

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In this way, you might say we are all “crooked.” Not necessarily in the corrupt sense, but in the imperfect sense. And that is the substance or thesis to the nursery rhyme, “There Was a Crooked Man.” For more on the rhyme’s meaning, let’s explore below.

The Origins

While the first recorded version of the rhyme comes from James Orchard Halliwell in 1842, it’s more than likely the verse has been around longer than that. Later, the rhyme became more popular in the early 20th century. Some believe it originates from the town of Lavenham, which is about an hour’s drive north of London.

There, residents live in multicolored homes that are bent, learning or even—yes—crooked. Some of the homes even abut one another and in that way support one another (like a good family!) and perhaps this is the origin for the rhyme.

Others say that the rhyme has to do with Scottish General Sir Alexander Leslie, who helped to secure religious and political freedom for his country of Scotland. And that the “crooked home” in the poem is the unlikely agreement between Scotland and England. But this, like all in-the-moment political attributions to nursery rhymes, is likely an after-the-fact ascription.

The Rhyme Itself

As for the rhyme itself and it’s meaning, the work reads like this,

There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all liv’d together in a little crooked house.

The reason rhymes like this last for so long is that they are both true to life and can take on several meanings. In one sense, it’s a little story about a man—you can just picture his crooked posture—who finds some things along his life’s journey.

But it’s the word “crooked” that is so evocative. Does it mean he’s frail, bent, corrupt? And if so, is the cat, the mouse and the home also frail, bent, corrupt? In some ways, yes, yes and yes.

(Also, for reference, a stile is a passageway on a farm that people can use but animals can’t. And sixpence is a kind of coin.)

Final Thoughts

The reason why nursery rhymes like this one last for centuries is because they are form-fitting and applicable for many situations. But at its heart, the rhyme is a metaphor for the human condition. We are all fallible, imperfect. The world itself is so. But together, we can manage. That’s the overarching lesson—more so than any political faction, to be sure.

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