Cock a doodle doo!
My dame has lost her shoe,
My master's lost his fiddling stick
And knows not what to do.[1]
Origins
The first two lines were used to mock the cockerel's (rooster in US) "crow".[1] The first full version recorded was in Mother Goose's Melody, published in London around 1765.[1] By the mid-nineteenth century, when it was collected by James Orchard Halliwell, it was very popular and three additional verses, perhaps more recent in origin, had been added:
Cock a doodle doo!
What is my dame to do?
Till master's found his fiddling stick,
She'll dance without her shoe.
Cock a doodle doo!
My dame has found her shoe,
And master's found his fiddling stick,
Sing cock a doodle do!
Cock a doodle doo!
My dame will dance with you,
While master fiddles his fiddling stick,
And knows not what to do.[1]
Notes
^ abcdI. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 128.
