"Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater" is an English language

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European 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. Fr ...

. 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. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...

number of 13497.

Lyrics

Common modern versions include: Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had a wife but couldn't keep her; He put her in a pumpkin shell And there he kept her very well. Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had another and didn't leave her; Peter learned to read and spell, And then he loved her very well. I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1997).

Origins

The first surviving version of the rhyme was published in ''Infant Institutes, part the first: or a Nurserical Essay on the Poetry, Lyric and Allegorical, of the Earliest Ages, &c.'', in London around 1797. It also appears in ''Mother Goose's Quarto: or Melodies Complete'', printed in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

around 1825. A verse collected from Aberdeen, Scotland and published in 1868 had the words: Peter, my neeper, Had a wife, And he couldna' keep her, He pat her i' the wa', And lat a' the mice eat her. This verse is also considered to be an older version of the rhyme

Eeper Weeper "Eeper Weeper" or "Heeper Peeper" is an English nursery rhyme and skipping song that tells the story of a chimney sweep who kills his second wife and hides her body up a chimney. The rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13497. Lyrics :Eep ...

Notes

References

{{Portal bar, Children's literature American nursery rhymes English nursery rhymes English folk songs American folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs about fictional male characters Songs about plants