I had a little nut tree
Nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg
And a golden pear
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The King of Spain’s daughter
Came to visit me,
And all for the sake
Of my little nut tree
Her dress was made of crimson
Jet black was her hair
She asked me for my nutmeg
And my golden pear
I said, “So fair a princess
Never did I see
I’ll give you all the fruit
From my little nut tree”
“I Had A Little Nut Tree” is a British nursery rhyme from Tudor England that was first published in the book Newest Christmas Box in 1797. In his 1843 book The Nursery Rhymes of England, James Orchard Halliwell speculated that the poem was older and that the “King of Spain’s daughter” here was Juana La Loca of Castile (also known as Joanna the Mad), who was the daughter of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain. She had visited the court of Henry VII in 1506.
British author and retired librarian John Welford fleshes things out more with his take on the poem. He wrote in a Medium essay in 2022 that the nursery rhyme “refers to the dynastic marriage between Catherine of Aragon”—daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and sister of Juana—“and Prince Arthur, the son and heir of King Henry VII of England. The speaker of the rhyme can therefore be taken as Prince Arthur, or his father, or the whole of England.”
The marriage fell apart because Prince Arthur died in 1502. Desiring not to return Catherine’s dowry, King Henry wanted her to marry his 11 year-old son, also named Henry (more specifically, the Henry VIII of six wives infamy), when he was older. They married in 1509.
“The nut tree is therefore the source of the wealth of England that King Henry was willing to trade with Spain,” wrote Helford. “Nutmeg refers to the spices that English trade with the Far East was bringing in, and pears are shorthand for England’s agricultural produce.” Henry wanted to acquire of the Spanish wealth as a result of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas.
“As far as England was concerned,” wrote Helford, “‘all the fruit from my little nut tree’ was a price well worth paying for a share in the wealth of the Americas.”
That’s a lot of subtext for a seemingly simple nursery rhyme.
There is one additional verse that has reportedly surfaced in some versions of the poem:
I danced o’er the water,
I danced o’er the sea,
And all the birds in the air,
Couldn’t catch me
Roald Dahl, author of James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, crafted his own parody of the famed poem for his 1989 book Rhyme Stew.
I had a little nut-tree,
Nothing would it bear.
I searched in all its branches,
But not a nut was there.
“Oh, little tree,” I begged,“Give me just a few.”
The little tree looked down at me
And whispered, “Nuts to you.”
A recent version of the poem was recorded by The Countdown Kids in 2005.
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Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images
