"Little Boy Blue" is an English-language

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 ...

. 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 Londo ...

number of 11318.

Lyrics

A common version of the rhyme is:

Little Boy Blue, Come blow your horn, The sheep's in the meadow, The cow's in the corn. Where is that boy Who looks after the sheep? He's under a haystack, Fast asleep. Will you wake him? Oh, no, not I, For if I do, He'll surely cry.

Origins and meaning

The earliest printed version of the rhyme is in ''Tommy Thumb's Little Song Book'' (c. 1744), but the rhyme may be much older. It may be alluded to in

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

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 a ...

(III, vi) when Edgar, masquerading as Mad Tom, says:

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepheard? :Thy sheepe be in the corne; And for one blast of thy minikin mouth :Thy sheepe shall take no harme.
I. Opie and P. Opie Iona Margaret Balfour Opie, (13 October 1923 – 23 October 2017) and Peter Mason Opie (25 November 1918 – 5 February 1982) were an English married team of folklorists who applied modern techniques to understanding children's literature and ...
, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 98–9.

It has been argued that Little Boy Blue was intended to represent

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

, who was the son of an Ipswich butcher, who may have acted as a hayward to his father's livestock, but there is no corroborative evidence to support this assertion. A more plausible, simpler, suggestion, avoiding any reference to Wolsey, is made by George Homans in his book ''English Villagers of the 13th Century'', who writes, after quoting ''Piers Plowmans description of the hayward and his horn: "The hayward's horn, his badge of office, must have been used to give warning that cattle or other trespassers were in the corn. Little Boy Blue was a hayward." George C Homans, ''English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century'', Harvard University Press, 2nd printing, 1942 p 294

References

{{authority control Child characters in literature Cattle in literature Fictional sheep Fictional shepherds Fictional musicians Songs about children Songs about musicians Songs about musical instruments Songs about shepherds English nursery rhymes Songwriter unknown Year of song unknown 18th-century songs English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs