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"One, Two, Three, Four, Five" (also known as "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" or "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive" in other versions) is a nursery rhyme and
One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because he bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on my right.
This is one of many counting-out rhymes. It was first recorded in ''
counting-out rhyme
A counting-out game or counting-out rhyme is a simple method of 'randomly' selecting a person from a group, often used by children for the purpose of playing another game. It usually requires no materials, and is achieved with spoken words or hand ...
. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13530.
Text and melody
A common modern version is:Origin
This is one of many counting-out rhymes. It was first recorded in ''Mother Goose's Melody
The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. This, howeve ...
'' around 1765. Like most versions until the late 19th century, it had only the first stanza and dealt with a hare, not a fish, with the words:
:One, two, three, four and five,
:I caught a hare alive;
:Six, seven, eight, nine and ten,
:I let him go again.
The modern version is derived from three variations collected by Henry Bolton in the 1880s from America.
See also
*List of nursery rhymes
The term "nursery rhyme" emerged in the third decade of the nineteenth century although this type of children's literature previously existed with different names such as ''Tommy Thumb Songs'' and ''Mother Goose Songs''. The first known book contai ...
Notes
{{reflist Counting-out rhymes English nursery rhymes English folk songs Songs about fish Songs about fishers