# German Nursery Rhyme Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 15, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317 "2013-08-15T15:49:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Streetsinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Streetsinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Streetsinger)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/1 "2013-08-15T15:49:16Z")
I am trying to track down for my mother some of the rhymes she learned in her childhood from her grandmother, who was born in or near Berlin around 1865 and moved to Brooklyn about 1885. I haven’t been able to find any trace of my mother’s favorite rhyme. It’s probably a nursery rhyme, so I’m not hoping to discover an author, but I’d love to know if anyone else has ever heard the rhyme, or anything similar, and especially if it’s ever appeared in print. (I’ve searched all the Germany nursery rhyme books I could find, but I haven’t found anything like it. Most nursery rhymes seem to rhyme “Kuh” with “muh.”) Caveat: This is a rhyme repeated eighty years ago to a small child and transcribed by me, and I know no German. So I’ve probably gotten some of the words wrong. Maybe fixing my grammar and/or spelling would help the search? Die rote Kuh, die weiße Kuh Sie macht die Augen auf und zu. Sie hat die ganze liebe nacht, Die augen auf und zu gemacht. Die rote Kuh, die weiße Kuh Sie macht die Augen auf und zu. ---
**Author:** ![Uther\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Uther\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uther_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/2 "2013-08-15T23:12:52Z")
Sorry, I never heard this rhyme. A quick search in some German-language search engines indicated they never heard it, either. Perhaps your grandmother made it up herself? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/3 "2013-08-16T01:04:47Z")
My German mom, 80 years old, does not recognize it. ---
**Author:** ![Snerky\_Snerk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Snerky\_Snerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snerky_Snerk)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/4 "2013-08-16T09:55:27Z")
I don’t know any german, so fed your words into google translate. The english output is a bit messy, but it mentions the colours red and white, cows, and love. Searching for those words in english lead to - > [@Robert Louis Stevenson](#): > > **The Cow** > > The friendly cow all red and white, > I love with all my heart: > She gives me cream with all her might, > To eat with apple-tart. > She wanders lowing here and there, > And yet she cannot stray, > All in the pleasant open air, > The pleasant light of day; > And blown by all the winds that pass > And wet with all the showers, > She walks among the meadow grass > And eats the meadow flowers. I’m just wondering if someone may have heard the RLS poem and reworked it to rhyme in german. Probably unlikely, but maybe possible? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/5 "2013-08-16T10:54:09Z")
> [@Streetsinger](#): > > Caveat: This is a rhyme repeated eighty years ago to a small child and transcribed by me, and I know no German. So I’ve probably gotten some of the words wrong. Maybe fixing my grammar and/or spelling would help the search? No, your German is pretty good. It sounds like a Deutsch version of “Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man/Bake me a cake as fast as you can,” though it’s about a red and white cow whose eyes bounce around all night long. I learned another German version of “Patty-cake” a long time ago. So far as I remember, it goes “Backe, backe, kuchen!” Der Backer hat gerufen. Er hat gerufen die ganze Nacht, [CHILD’S NAME] hat kein Teig gebracht! (Basically, the town baker is calling for all the women to come use his oven, but the child forgets to bring his/her dough.) ---
**Author:** ![Uther\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Uther\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uther_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/6 "2013-08-16T13:39:01Z")
> [@Streetsinger](#): > > Die rote Kuh, die weiße Kuh > Sie macht die Augen auf und zu. > Sie hat die ganze liebe nacht, > Die augen auf und zu gemacht. > Die rote Kuh, die weiße Kuh > Sie macht die Augen auf und zu. A literal translation would be: The red cow, the white cow, she opens and closes her eyes. During the whole dear night she opened and closed her eyes. The red cow, the white cow, she opens and closes her eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Uther\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Uther\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uther_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/7 "2013-08-16T13:52:05Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I learned another German version of “Patty-cake” a long time ago. So far as I remember, it goes > > “Backe, backe, kuchen!” > Der Backer hat gerufen. > Er hat gerufen die ganze Nacht, > [CHILD’S NAME] hat kein Teig gebracht! > > (Basically, the town baker is calling for all the women to come use his oven, but the child forgets to bring his/her dough.) This was actually a very common practice in many places. The dough for cakes was prepared at home, then brought to the bakery with the more professional oven. Another (IMO more common) version of this nursery rhyme lists the ingredients of the cake: Backe, backe Kuchen, der Bäcker hat gerufen. Wer will guten Kuchen backen der muss haben sieben Sachen: Eier und Schmalz, Zucker und Salz, Milch und Mehl, Safran macht den Kuchen gel. (Bake, bake cake, the baker has called. If one wants to bake a good cake, one must have seven things: Eggs and lard, sugar and salt, milk and flour, saffron turns the cake yellow.) Apparently, the yeast was seen as less important. ---
**Author:** ![Streetsinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Streetsinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Streetsinger)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/8 "2013-08-16T18:25:09Z")
Thank you for checking with a German grandma. I did consider the possibility that my great-grandma made up the rhyme herself, but from what I’ve heard of her, she doesn’t seem to have been the type who would create whimsical rhymes about cows. Maybe a family friend made it up for her. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-nursery-rhyme-question/666317/9 "2013-08-17T17:13:30Z")
> [@Streetsinger](#): > > Thank you for checking with a German grandma. I did consider the possibility that my great-grandma made up the rhyme herself, but from what I’ve heard of her, she doesn’t seem to have been the type who would create whimsical rhymes about cows. Maybe a family friend made it up for her. It could have been just a neighborhood/regional rhyme. I know when I was a kid, mostly the little girls in the neighborhood had silly rhymes like that when they played hopscotch or jumped rope. Some rhymes were very specific about other friends or places in the neighborhood - so I can imagine this might have just been what all the kids in that particular neighborhood, during that particular era, used to say.