"This Little Piggy": Origins? Other languages?

Factual Questions
1

I doubt you would find a person in this country that doesn’t know the words to the “This Little Piggy” rhyme. Hell, I think spies could be exposed by not knowing it.

So, what are the origins? Google didn’t help me out, and I also searched the boards to no avail.

Also, can any Dopers from other countries provide examples (loosely translated, of course) of a similar rhyme in your country?

As a service for those Int’l Dopers, I’ll provide details. We say this rhyme while pointing to our toes. The big toe is the “piggy” that went to market, then they go in order down the foot, with the smallest toe being the one that cried “wee wee wee”:

This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy had roast beef
This little piggy had none
This little piggy cried “Wee! Wee! Wee!” all the way home.

Sadly, I still use this rhyme to identify them. When I broke one of my toes, I explained which one by saying “the one that had no roast beef”. Everyone knew which one it was.

2

In Swedish for the fingers: Tummetott, slickepott, långeman, gullebrand och lilla vickevire.

(Does not deserve translation)

3

As is the case with so many of our popular children’s songs and stories, this is an ascerbic commentary on a contempory political situation.

I don’t know if there is anything online, but a good research library should be able to dig information on the Aldermen of Warwickshire during the 1500s. The parallels are strikingly obvious, especially Roger Harmsley and the “roast beef” issues.

4

DrF:

You’ve now piqued my curiosity: What are some of the stories in other languages that are the equivalent of Gulliver’s Travels?

5

Ah, yes. I remember it well. My dear old mother used to recite this to me, but it was slightly different.

This little piggie went to market,
This little piggie stayed home,
This little piggie had roast beef,
This little piggie had none,
This little piggie went “wee, wee, wee,” all the way home,
And Holy Jesus, what the hell is that? I guess this little piggie is a goddamn mutant.

What fond memories this topic brings back.

6

I’m familiar with the rhyme in the OP. Australia Doper, FWIW. In my family, the tradition was to quickly tickle your subjects leg at the “Wee, wee, wee” part. :slight_smile:

I too am curious as to what other childrens’ stories are political commentary.

Surely not the UL concerning “Ring a Ring a Rosie”?

7

Ring a ring a Rosie?

Narrad, It is ‘Ring a ring of roses’ and is a rhyme concerning the black death or bubonic plague.

1 Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
2 A pocket full of posies,
3 A-tishoo, a-tishoo,
4 We all fall down.

I think this is right (It’s been a decade or so since High School):

1 The lymph glands swelled into buboes that resembled a top-down images of a rose and petals.

2 Posies of lavender were considered a suitable talisman to prevent you catching it

3 One of the first signs was sneezing (then nausia, headache & aching joints… Hey, that’s me).

4 …Fall down dead, after about 4 days I think. Not nice.

Tell me if this is incorrect, I could sue my school (or whatever)
:wink:

8

flapcats, I know it as Ring around the rosie and it goes like this:

Ring around the rosie
Pocket full of posie
ashes ashes
we all fall down
But according to snopes, it’s not about the plague at all.

9

Monty:

I haven’t been drawn to researching it deeply, so I cannot firmly identify the Lilliput and Brobdingrag portions, but Dean Swift seems to have plagarized the Buddhist Avatamsaka Sutra, the Garland Sutra, which contains the story of Sudhana (called Sonjae in Korean) for the Laputa sequence.

10

Actually, “Ring a Ring a Rosie” is a published variant of “Ring a ring of Roses”, itself a variant of “Ring Around the Rosie”. Whatever the name, it is the subject of a popular urban legend (Lsura has given us the Snopes link.)

11

We like to change the words around while doing piggies on WVBaby:

This little piggie went to Wal-Mart
This little piggie stayed home
This little piggie had Arby’s
And this little piggie …

etc etc

12

It was only a matter of time before this link showed up… :wink:

13

Here in Argentina, the rhyme is kinda old fashioned:

This little piggy hunted a duck
This little piggy plucked it
This little piggy cooked it
And this pert little piggy ate it, and the others chase him here and here and here…

Yes, I missed one in the middle I can’t remember. It’s popular, but it has lots of variants, all involving procces of preparing meal, though. Many times they are not little piggies, and you’d refer to them as “this one”, “this other one” and so on.

It’s a game purposed for tickle a baby or kid. When you reach the smallest, you then go up and make him/her laugh.

Sorry if I did an odd translation :smiley: