Ladybird Ladybird
Encyclopedia
"Ladybird Ladybird" is an English language
nursery rhyme
. It has a Roud Folk Song Index
number of 16215.
, brightly-coloured insects commonly viewed as lucky. The English version has been dated to at least 1744, when it appeared in a collection of nursery rhymes. The verse has several popular forms, including:
A shorter, grimmer version is also widespread:
Ann who hides may also be Nan, Anne or Little Anne. She may have hidden under a warming pan, porridge pan, frying pan or even a pudding pan.http://trmg.designwest.com/TRMG4.html Some variants are radically different:
The 'little one' also may not be hiding at all, as in the following:
Further variants can be found:
And from Peterborough
:
Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebug
s.http://www.antlionpit.com/folklore.html
From Favorite Poems Old and New, Selected for boys and girls by Helen Ferris Doubleday & Co., Inc.(1957)
Ladybirds are useful as eaters of aphid
s, which would otherwise damage plants. They can also be a nuisance, but there would be logic from a farmer or gardener’s viewpoint in trying to shoo them away rather than kill them. This could be the rational basis for teaching children to respect them.
This little Nan version could be a reference to the habit of setting fires to smoke the bugs out of plants. It caused the ladybugs
to fly away. The younger insects, in maggot form, would have to crawl away. Thus "your children all roam". The insects in pupate form, within their shells, would not be able to flee the danger and thus would die from the smoke or fire. The idea is that Nan is within her pupal case and cannot flee until she breaks free - "weaving her laces", undoing her pupal case.
Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebug
s.http://www.antlionpit.com/folklore.html
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
. It has a Roud Folk Song Index
Roud Folk Song Index
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...
number of 16215.
The rhyme
This traditional verse relates to LadybirdsCoccinellidae
Coccinellidae is a family of beetles, known variously as ladybirds , or ladybugs . Scientists increasingly prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as these insects are not true bugs...
, brightly-coloured insects commonly viewed as lucky. The English version has been dated to at least 1744, when it appeared in a collection of nursery rhymes. The verse has several popular forms, including:
- Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
- Your house is on fire and your children are gone,
- All except one,
- And her name is Ann,
- And she hid under the baking pan.
A shorter, grimmer version is also widespread:
- Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
- Your house is on fire,
- Your children shall burn!
Ann who hides may also be Nan, Anne or Little Anne. She may have hidden under a warming pan, porridge pan, frying pan or even a pudding pan.http://trmg.designwest.com/TRMG4.html Some variants are radically different:
- All except one and her name was Aileen
- And she hid under a soup tureen.http://www.idabc.com/bod.html
The 'little one' also may not be hiding at all, as in the following:
- Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.
- Your house is on fire;
- Your children all roam.
- Except little Nan
- Who sits in her pan
- Weaving her laces as fast as she can.
Further variants can be found:
- Ladybird, ladybird, / Fly away home. / Your house is on fire, / Your children are flown.
- All but a little one / Under a stone. / Fly home, Ladybird, / 'Ere it be gone.http://rosemarylane.blogspot.com/2005/03/ladybird-ladybird-fly-away-home.html
And from Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
:
- Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, / Your horse is on foot, your children are gone;
- All but one, and that's little John, / And he lies under the grindle stone.http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17269/17269.txt
Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebug
Doodlebug
Doodlebug or doodle bug may refer to:Zoology:* Antlion* Woodlouse* Armadillidiidae, the pill bug family in the woodlouse suborderGround vehicles:* Doodlebug , a self-propelled railroad vehicle...
s.http://www.antlionpit.com/folklore.html
From Favorite Poems Old and New, Selected for boys and girls by Helen Ferris Doubleday & Co., Inc.(1957)
- Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
- the field mouse is gone to her nest
- the daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes
- and the birds and the bees are at rest
- Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
- the glow worm is lighting her lamp
- the dew's falling fast, and your fine speckled wings
- will flag with the close clinging damp
- Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home
- the fairy bells tinkle afar
- make haste or they'll catch you and harness you fast
- with a cobweb to Oberon's star
Meanings
There were superstitious beliefs that it was unlucky to kill a ladybird, and that the verse would make them fly off.http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/redmond6.htm Another superstition states that you should chant the verse if a ladybird lands on you: if it then flies away again, your wish will come true. http://www.quixoticpixels.com/photos/2006/05/lady_bird.htmlLadybirds are useful as eaters of aphid
Aphid
Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on cultivated plants in temperate regions...
s, which would otherwise damage plants. They can also be a nuisance, but there would be logic from a farmer or gardener’s viewpoint in trying to shoo them away rather than kill them. This could be the rational basis for teaching children to respect them.
This little Nan version could be a reference to the habit of setting fires to smoke the bugs out of plants. It caused the ladybugs
Coccinellidae
Coccinellidae is a family of beetles, known variously as ladybirds , or ladybugs . Scientists increasingly prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as these insects are not true bugs...
to fly away. The younger insects, in maggot form, would have to crawl away. Thus "your children all roam". The insects in pupate form, within their shells, would not be able to flee the danger and thus would die from the smoke or fire. The idea is that Nan is within her pupal case and cannot flee until she breaks free - "weaving her laces", undoing her pupal case.
Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebug
Doodlebug
Doodlebug or doodle bug may refer to:Zoology:* Antlion* Woodlouse* Armadillidiidae, the pill bug family in the woodlouse suborderGround vehicles:* Doodlebug , a self-propelled railroad vehicle...
s.http://www.antlionpit.com/folklore.html
Cultural references
- At the outset of Chapter 14 of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain writes: "A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy heights of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said: 'Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, Your house is on fire, your children's alone'..."
- The rhyme is alluded to in Beatrix PotterBeatrix PotterHelen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
's The Tale of Mrs. TittlemouseThe Tale of Mrs. TittlemouseThe Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1910. The tale is about housekeeping and insect pests in the home, and reflects Potter's own sense of tidiness and her abhorrence of insect infestations. The...
(1910). - The rhyme's title was used for a 1994 drama-documentary, Ladybird Ladybird, by Ken LoachKen LoachKenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
about a British woman's dispute with Social Services over the care and custody of her four children. - The lines "fly away from home, your house is on fire and your children are alone" are used by Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
in the song "Jockey Full Of Bourbon" on the 1985 album Rain DogsRain DogsRain Dogs is the 9th album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in August 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild...
. - Ladybug LadybugLadybug Ladybug (film)Ladybug Ladybug is a 1963 American motion picture, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Frank Perry. The film is a commentary about the psychological effects of the Cold War, the title deriving from the classic nursery rhyme...
is a 1963 film about the evacuation of a rural elementary school following a (mistaken) alert of an imminent nuclear attack. - Fly Away HomeFly Away HomeFly Away Home is a 1996 drama and comedy film directed by Carroll Ballard, the director of The Black Stallion . The film stars Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels and Dana Delany. The story follows a young girl from New Zealand who survives a car crash that results in the death of her mother...
is a 1996 film about a young girl who, with her father, leads a flock of Canadian geese to a wildlife refuge.