The earliest record of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published in 1744, which noted only the first four verses. The extended version given below was not printed until c. 1770.[1]
The rhyme also has an alternative ending, in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for his crime.[2] Several early versions picture a stocky, strong-billed
bullfinch tolling the bell, which may have been the original intention of the rhyme.[3]
Origin and meaning
Although the earliest known record of the song is from the mid-eighteenth century,[4] there is some evidence that it is much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is depicted in a 15th-century
stained glass window at
Buckland Rectory, Gloucestershire.[5] The rhyme is similar to a poem, Phyllyp Sparowe, written by
John Skelton about 1508, in which the narrator laments the death of his pet bird.[1] The use of the rhyme 'owl' with 'shovel' could suggest that it was originally used in older middle English pronunciation.[1] Versions of the story appear to exist in other countries, including Germany.[1]
A number of theories have been advanced to explain the meaning of the rhyme:
The rhyme records a mythological event, such as the death of the god
Balder from
Norse mythology,[1] or the ritual sacrifice of a king figure, as proposed by early folklorists as in the '
Cutty Wren' theory of a 'pagan survival'.[6][7]
It is a parody of the death of
King William II, who was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest (Hampshire) in 1100, and who was known as William Rufus, meaning "red".[8]
The rhyme is connected with the fall of
Robert Walpole's government in 1742, since Robin is a diminutive form of Robert and the first printing is close to the time of the events mentioned.[1]
According to Celtic traditions,
Lugh, the sun god who dies as the nights get longer after the summer solstice, is marked in the old Celtic pictographic calendar with a bow-and-arrow shape. Lugh was the primary god representing the red sun and was also known in
Welsh as "Coch Rhi Ben", anglicised to "Cock Robin" (coch meaning red, rhi meaning lord and ben meaning leader – a nod to the belief that souls became birds after death). The sparrow who kills him with "my bow and arrow" represents
Brân the Blessed – the god of winter in the form of a raven.
All of these theories are based on perceived similarities in the text to legendary or historical events, or on the similarities of names.
Peter Opie pointed out that an existing rhyme could have been adapted to fit the circumstances of political events in the eighteenth century.[1]
The theme of Cock Robin's death as well as the poem's distinctive cadence have become archetypes, much used in literary fiction and other works of art, from poems, to murder mysteries, to cartoons.[1]
"The East London band 'Cock Sparrer'" gets their name from this famous poem. With the logo of bloody Robin's wings and the bands name written over it. In the Cockney tongue Sparow is pronounced Sparrer.
^M. C. Maloney, ed., English illustrated books for children: a descriptive companion to a selection from the Osborne Collection
(Bodley Head, 1981), p. 31.
^The gentry house that became the old rectory at Buckland has an impressive timbered hall that dates from the fifteenth century with two lights of contemporary stained glass in the west wall with the rebus of William Grafton and arms of Gloucester Abbey in one and the rising sun of
Edward IV in the other light; birds in various attitudes hold scrolls "In Nomine Jesu"; none is reported transfixed by an arrow in Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England, s.v. "Buckland Old Rectory, Gloucestershire", (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 80.
^R. J. Stewart, Where is St. George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong (1976).
^B. Forbes, Make Merry in Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's Plays & Celebrations in the English Folk Tradition (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2009), p. 5.
^J. Harrowven, The origins of rhymes, songs and sayings (Kaye & Ward, 1977), p. 92.
^"Who Killed…Norma Jean?", by Ken Bigger, Sing Out! magazine, 7 May 2013 (retrieved 23 January 2022)