The short, nonsense rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” might be the most recognizable nursery rhyme of them all. It even gave birth to a common phrase—”over the moon”—which is part of the rhyme, as we’ll see here below.
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But what is the origin of the rhyme and who wrote it? Let’s explore the beloved nursery rhyme, “Hey Diddle Diddle.”
Who Wrote the Rhyme?
Known as “Hey Diddle Diddle,” “The Cat and the Fiddle” or “The Cow Jumped Over the Moon,” the rhyme may date back hundreds of years. Some believe it goes back to the 16th century, or even further.
During medieval times, a cat playing a fiddle was a common image. In the Thomas Peston play, A lamentable tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth, conteyning the life of Cambises King of Percia, from 1569, there is a line that may refer to the rhyme, which went:
They be at hand Sir with stick and fiddle;
They can play a new dance called hey-diddle-diddle.
Also in Alexander Montgomerie’s The Cherry and the Slate from 1597, there is a stanza written that goes:
But since you think’t an easy thing
To mount above the moon,
Of your own fiddle take a spring
And dance when you have done.
Around this time, the name “Cat and the Fiddle” was a common name for inns and hotels, including one in London around 1587.
The melody used to sing the rhyme today was first recorded by composer and nursery rhyme collector, James William Elliot, in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs of 1870. Around that time, he also published Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs Set to Music.
The Lyrics
For such a well-known rhyme, the lyrics to the work are short. They go like this:
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon
Though in some variations, the penultimate line can be sung “To see such fun,” replacing “sport” for “fun.” Other variations change “sport” to “a sight” or “craft.”
However, the lyrics known today (above) are slightly different than the original version, first printed around 1765 in London in the book, Mother Goose’s Melody, which go:
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump’d over the Moon,
The little dog laugh’d to see such Craft,
And the Fork ran away with the Spoon.
Fictional Authors
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Fellowship of the Ring, the rhyme was said to be written by the fictional hobbit character, Bilbo Baggins, as part of a longer, narrative poem.
And in The Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum’s “Mother Goose in Prose,” the rhyme was written by a farm boy named Bobby who saw a cat running with a fiddle attached to her tail, a cow “jumping” over the room in a reflection in the water, a dog barking with excitement and a dish and spoon from dinner sliding into a brook.
Meaning
Over the years, many have attempted to ascribe meaning to the poem, but all have been discredited. Some have even tried to say that the “Cat” with the fiddle is an historical figure like Catherine of Aragon, Catherine I of Russia, or Canton de Fidèle. Tolkien even satirized the litany of explanations in his “The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late.”
In the end, scholars agree, it’s a simple nonsense verse using very common characters.
More Origin Stories
Some say the rhyme can be traced back to writers James Hook and Samuel Arnold.
Hook, born in 1746, was a skilled musician from a young age. He compiled the books, Hook’s Christmas Box and Hook’s Christmas Box, Vol. 2, which included other rhymes like “Rub-A-Dub-Dub.” Arnold, a composer, and organist born in 1740 began writing music for theater at around 24 years old.
Though it’s unclear (and largely unlikely) that either really wrote the rhyme.
What might be more likely is that the rhyme is based on a pub game called “trap-ball,” which was played to fiddle music and includes a “cat,” or ball tied to a string that players hit as far as they could.
Final Thoughts
What’s perhaps most amazing about the popular nursery rhyme is that something so nonsensical can last in our imaginations for centuries. Human beings need logic and reason but we also need breaks from both. So, to think about a dog laughing, a cow jumping millions of miles over the moon and a dish running away with a spoon is too good not to remember.
For yet one more example, check out the rendition of the rhyme from Sesame Street below.
