"There was an old woman lived under a hill" is a

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

which dates back to at least its first known printing in 1714. It has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

number of 797.

Lyrics

:There was an old woman lived under the hill, :And if she's not gone she lives there still. :Baked apples she sold, and cranberry pies, :And she's the old woman that never told lies.

Origins and development

In 1714 these lines: :There was an old woman :Liv'd under a hill, :And if she ben't gone, :She lives there still— appeared as part of a catch in ''The Academy of Complements''. In 1744 these lines appeared by themselves (in a slightly different form) in ''

Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book ''Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song-Book'' is the first extant anthology of English nursery rhymes, published in London in 1744. It contains the oldest printed texts of many well-known and popular rhymes, as well as several that eventually dropped out of ...

'', the first extant collection of nursery rhymes. One eighteenth-century editor, possibly

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...

, added a note: "This is a self evident Proposition which is the very Essence of Truth. 'She lived under the hill, and if she is not gone she lives there still', Nobody will presume to contradict this." The 1810 edition of ''Gammer Gurton's Garland'' included a variant. :Pillycock, Pillycock, sate on a hill, :If he's not gone—he sits there still. Edgar, in Shakespeare's ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...

'', appears to refer to this version when he says "Pillycock sat on Pillycock hill," which indicates that the rhyme was known as early as the first decade of the seventeenth century. The final lines first appeared in print c. 1843.''The Annotated Mother Goose'', pp. 28–29.

Notes

{{reflist English nursery rhymes English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown