The most common version known today is:
Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
But the original, attributed to fictional author Mother Goose in around 1765, is:
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump'd over the Moon,
The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft,
And the Fork ran away with the Spoon.
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the teapots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ’em when they do!
So it’s Ning Nang Nong
The cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
The trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
This evening I unzipped my skin
And carefully unscrewed my head,
Exactly as I always do
When I prepare myself for bed.
And while I slept a coo-coo came
As naked as could be
And put on the skin
And screwed on the head
That once belonged to me.
Now wearing my feet
He runs through the street
In a most disgraceful way.
Doin' things and sayin' things
I'd never do or say,
Ticklin' the children
And kickin' the men
And Dancin' the ladies away.
So if he makes your bright eyes cry
Or makes your poor head spin,
That scoundrel you see
Is not really me
He's the coo-coo
Who's wearing my skin.
I'm Joan, an English grad from Manchester, UK.
I fell in love with nonsense poetry when I read The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear and have been trying to write nonsense myself every since.
This is my little space dedicated to the art of nonsense and poetry and nonsense poetry.
I'll try to share some nonsense every week. One day I might subject you to some of my own.