Additional Information about the Sing a Song of Sixpence Nursery Rhyme History
Our grateful thanks goes to Rebecca Harris and David Bardwell for providing the following additional information about Sing a Song of Sixpence: Rebecca wrote, "During the Medieval times, there were occasions when the cook in the house of a wealthy knight did indeed put live birds (often pigeons, but I'm sure it could just as easily have been blackbirds) inside a huge pastry crust, on his own initiative. This was seen as a great joke and the cook would usually have a real pie waiting to bring in when the birds had been released."
David wrote, "In the 1950s when Listen with Mother was on BBC radio they used to add the following to the end of the rhyme after "pecked off her nose":
"There was such a commotion that little Jenny Wren
Flew down from the tree tops and popped it on again"
Whether this line was added by someone at the BBC so as not to upset little listeners or whether it is older I don' know...
Click here to read about a possible connection between this famous Nursery Rhyme, Blackbirds in a Pie, with King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn