Little Poll Parrot

"Little Poll Parrot"
Roud #20178
Song
Written	England
Published	1853
Form	Nursery rhyme
Writer(s)	Traditional
Language	English

"Little Poll Parrot" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20178.

Lyrics

Like Little Miss Muffet and Little Jack Horner the verse is an example of a nursery rhyme that contains six dactylic lines. The most common modern version of the lyrics is:

Little Poll Parrot

Sat in his garret

Eating toast and tea;

A little brown mouse

Jumped into the house,

And stole it all away.^[1]

Origins

It has been argued that the rhyme originates in the seventeenth century.^[2] The earliest printed version was in a collection by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.^[1]

Notes

1. I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 353.
2. Hunt, Peter (1998). International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Taylor & Francis. p. 178. ISBN 0-415-08856-9.