✦ A Nursery Rhyme ✦
Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair, and asked to taste his wares. But Simon has no penny, and that is only the start of his silly adventures.
Read aloud by Storyland Classics ✦ 1 min 05 sec ✦ Watch on YouTube
✦ The Rhyme ✦
Traditional English nursery rhyme. Public domain.
Simple Simon met a pieman, Going to the fair; Says Simple Simon to the pieman, “Let me taste your ware.”
Says the pieman to Simple Simon, “Show me first your penny”; Says Simple Simon to the pieman, “Indeed I have not any.”
Simple Simon went a-fishing For to catch a whale; All the water he had got Was in his mother’s pail.
✦ About the Rhyme ✦
Simple Simon was a popular character in little books called chapbooks, sold cheaply in the 1700s. “Simple” here means foolish, and each verse shows Simon getting something comically wrong.
Many more verses were added over the years, as Simon tries to catch whales in a pail and look for plums on thistles. The pieman verse is the most famous.
✦ Talk About It ✦