Hey diddle diddle is a fantasy rhyme designed to delight children with impossible images such "the Cow jumped over the Moon"! Walt Disney's team of animators use this type of imagery in animated films to great effect! Hey diddle diddle' was a colloquialism used in much the same vein as "hey nonny no" which can be found in traditional English folk ballads. The earliest recorded version of the poem dates to 1765 while the phrase "high diddle diddle" dates to Elizabethan times and is found in Shakespeare.
- Hey diddle diddle,
- The cat and the fiddle,
- The cow jumped over the moon.
- The little dog laughed to see such fun,
- And the fork ran away with the spoon.
One theory is that this poem is a satire of a scandal during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. The cat is Elizabeth I and the dog is Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whom she once referred to as her 'lap dog'. It is also speculated that the 'dish' is a server at the royal court, whereas the 'spoon' refers to a taste-tester. When these last two secretly eloped, Elizabeth had them captured and confined to the Tower of London.
A refrain like 'heigh nonny-nonny' or 'hey nonny-no' is traditionally found only in funny, bawdy, or generally, light hearted songs. In fact there is a tendency among folk musicians to classify old jigs, reels, fiddling, ale music as 'Heigh nonny nonny' (think folk revival festivals) as opposed to more angsty ballads of death and doom.
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