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by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

There was an old woman
Language: English 
There was an old woman lived under a hill,
And if she’s not gone she lives there still.
There was an old woman lived under a hill,
Put a mouse in a bag and went to the mill.
The miller did swear by the point of his knife,
He never took toll of a mouse in his life.

There was an old woman and nothing she had,
And so this old woman was said to be mad.
She’d nothing to eat and nothing to wear,
She’d nothing to lose and nothing to fear.
She’d nothing to ask and she’d nothing to give,
And when she did die, she’d nothing to leave.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, 
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some porridge without any bread,
Then she borrowed a hammer and knocked them all dead.
She went to the town to bespeak ‘em a coffin,
But when she got back they were lying there laughing.
She went up the stairs to ring the bell
Then she slipped her foot and down she fell.
So she got the coffin to herself.

There was an old woman tossed up in a basket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon.
And where she was going I couldn’t but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom.
Old woman, old woman, old woman, quoth I,
Where are you going to, up so high?
To brush the cobwebs off the sky.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936 - 2012), "There was an old woman", 2004 [mezzo-soprano and piano], from Songs before sleep, no. 6. [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Set in a modified version by Carol Barratt.

    • Go to the text. [ view differences ]

Set in a modified version by Peter Warlock.

    • Go to the text. [ view differences ]

Researcher for this page: Mike Pearson

This text was added to the website: 2016-07-10
Line count: 28
Word count: 253

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