SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE

New Zealand Tablet, 7 September 1911, Page 1774

SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE

s ‘ Sing a Song of Sixpence ’ was sung by boys and girls as long ago as the time of James I. of England, 1603. The ‘ four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie ’ are the twenty-four hours of the day. When ‘ the pie was cut ’ —that is, when the day opens — the birds begin to sing. So you see the simple rhymes were intended merely to illustrate a natural phenomenon.