Simple Simon (nursery rhyme)

"Simple Simon" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19777.

Lyrics
The rhyme is as follows;


 * Simple Simon met a pieman,
 * Going to the fair;
 * Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
 * Let me taste your ware.


 * Said the pieman to Simple Simon,
 * Show me first your penny;
 * Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
 * Indeed I have not any.


 * Simple Simon went a-fishing,
 * For to catch a whale;
 * All the water he had got,
 * Was in his mother's pail.


 * Simple Simon went to look
 * If plums grew on a thistle;
 * He pricked his fingers very much,
 * Which made poor Simon whistle.


 * He went for water in a sieve
 * But soon it all fell through
 * And now poor Simple Simon
 * Bids you all adieu!

Origin
The verses used today are the first of a longer chapbook history first published in 1764. The character of Simple Simon may have been in circulation much longer, possibly through an Elizabethan chapbook and in a ballad, Simple Simon's Misfortunes and his Wife Margery's Cruelty, from about 1685. A possible inspiration is Simon Edy, a beggar of the St Giles area in the 18th century.