Baring-Gould's 1962 "Annotated mother goose", about halfway through, gives a very stark little rhyme, which reads:
Ladybird, ladybird
Fly away home
Your house is on fire And your children will burn[1]
Now, I remember this from my own childhood with a still horrific but slightly more gentle
Your house is on fire
And your children are alone
Occasionally adding a final line:
All except Little Anne, Who’s hiding under the frying pan![2]
Of course, as a child, there seemed nothing at all amiss about ladybird’s houses being aflame, but as an adult this is another rhyme which feels like it must have some other hidden meaning within!
Ok, so as always, I first like to turn to trying to find origins and early publishing dates. the earliest I could find for this particular one is actually right back in the 1700s to the original Tommy Thumb booklet! It does also appear to be in the form of the less optimistic original telling there.[3] Tommy
Thumb’s little song book is actually considered to be the oldest surviving book of nursery rhymes, and so most of the content are likely older, but no other examples survive in collections like this. As yet, this is the earliest version of Ladybird, Ladybird I have found. Other places it might exist, especially if it does turn out to be topical, are on old broadsheets or pamphlets However, thus far none of these seem to survive. Tommy Thumb’s song book, incidentally, might actually be one of the earliest books designed for children ever put to the printers![4]
Our friend James Orchard Halliwell seems to have been one of the first to add the final line with his 1842 rendition:
Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home, Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone, All but one, and her name is Ann, And she crept under the pudding-pan[5].
So, what’s it about? Who is the ladybird and why was her house on fire?
One of the main theories I have come across in texts old and new, is that this rhyme about religious persecution. People don’t seem to agree, however, on who it was being aimed at!
Theories range from it being a repression of the ancient gods in favour of the masculine sky gods of ancient Greece, to the repression of British and Celtic paganism, with the first line being a taunt of “you are defeated” to the latter, newer lines being a nod to the fact that paganism survived.[6] Despite being a pagan myself, and delighting in this idea, it is actually highly unlikely that this rhyme is this old despite that throughout many cultures Ladybirds have been considered sacred for eons and are
thought to bring luck to those who they land on.
Another theory, especially since this rhyme was very likely known during the 1500 and 1600s, is that it was actually being aimed at Catholics, with the actual word “ladybird” deriving from “our lady” originally.[7] With this in mind, this actually begins to pull together. The form of this rhyme is very similar in form to other rhymes written in the 16th century, (little Bo Peep, for example) and possibly carries a subtle nod to the virgin Mary, so I would surmise it likely to be a nod to the persecution of Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth 1st. Fly away home because your homes are burning and your families at risk. As for Ann – well, to go there, I’d just be guessing with no evidence so I won’t fall into that trap! 😊
Final words on this one are that it does seem that nobody really knows and so this one falls a little more into obcurity.
[1] William Barring-Gould, Annotated mother goose, (New York: Bramhall House Publishing) 1962, p.209
[2] Or, as cited in Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly thrown (London: Granta) 2004, p.53 “Under the warming pan”
[3] Mary Cooper, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, (London) 1744, p.5. Copy held by the British library - The British Library, 2017 <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/tommy-thumbs-pretty-song-book> [accessed 11 April 2017]
[4] British Library, Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Songbook, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/tommy-thumbs-pretty-song-book
[5] James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England: Collected Principally from Oral Tradition, (London: The Percy Society) 1842 p158
[6] Opie and Opie p.309
[7] Michael Majerus, A natural History of Ladybirds, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 2016, p.2