Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Refimprove Template:Infobox song "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13497.

Lyrics

Common modern versions include: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;"> Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had a wife but couldn't keep her; He put her in a pumpkin shell And there he kept her very well.

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, Had another and didn't leave her; Peter learned to read and spell, And then he loved her very well.<ref name="Opie1997">I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1997).</ref>Template:Rp</poem>

Origins

The first surviving version of the rhyme was published in Infant Institutes, part the first: or a Nurserical Essay on the Poetry, Lyric and Allegorical, of the Earliest Ages, &c., in London around 1797.<ref name=Opie1997/> It also appears in Mother Goose's Quarto: or Melodies Complete, printed in Boston, Massachusetts around 1825.<ref name=Opie1997/>

A verse collected from Aberdeen, Scotland and published in 1868 had the words: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;"> Peter, my neeper,Template:Refn Had a wife, And he couldna' keep her, He pat her i' the wa', And lat a' the mice eat her. </poem>

This verse is also considered to be an older version of the rhyme Eeper Weeper.<ref name=Opie1997/>Template:Rp