Mary Had a Little Lamb

For Paul McCartney's song, see Mary Had a Little Lamb (Paul McCartney song). For the 1961 British comedy film, see Mary Had a Little....

"Mary Had a Little Lamb" Roud #7622
Mary and lamb at school, according to William Wallace Denslow
Written by	Sarah Josepha Hale/John Roulstone
Published	1830
Written	USA
Language	English
Form	Nursery rhyme

William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for Mary had a little lamb, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose

The Redstone School, now in Sudbury, Massachusetts, is believed to be the schoolhouse mentioned in the nursery rhyme.

Inside the schoolhouse.

"Mary Had a Little Lamb" is an English language nursery rhyme of nineteenth-century American origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7622.

Background

The nursery rhyme was first published (as opposed to written) by the Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon, as an original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale on May 24, 1830, and was inspired by an actual incident.^[1]

As a girl, Mary Sawyer (later Mrs. Mary Tyler) kept a pet lamb, which she took to school one day at the suggestion of her brother. A commotion naturally ensued. Mary recalled: "Visiting school that morning was a young man by the name of John Roulstone, a nephew of the Reverend Lemuel Capen, who was then settled in Sterling. It was the custom then for students to prepare for college with ministers, and for this purpose Mr. Roulstone was studying with his uncle. The young man was very much pleased with the incident of the lamb; and the next day he rode across the fields on horseback to the little old schoolhouse and handed me a slip of paper which had written upon it the three original stanzas of the poem..."^[2]

There are two competing theories on the origin of this poem. One holds that Roulstone wrote the first four lines and that the final twelve lines, more moralistic and much less childlike than the first, were composed by Sarah Josepha Hale; the other is that Hale was responsible for the entire poem.^[3]

Mary Sawyer's house, located in Sterling, Massachusetts, was destroyed by arson on August 12, 2007.^[4] A statue representing Mary's Little Lamb stands in the town center. The Redstone School, which was built in 1798, was purchased by Henry Ford and relocated to a churchyard on the property of Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Text

Song

In the 1830s, Lowell Mason set the nursery rhyme to a melody adding repetition in the verses:

Mary had a little lamb,
little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
whose fleece was white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
and everywhere that Mary went,
the lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day
school one day, school one day,
It followed her to school one day,
which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,
laugh and play, laugh and play,
it made the children laugh and play
to see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out,
turned it out, turned it out,
And so the teacher turned it out,
but still it lingered near,

And waited patiently about,
patiently about, patiently about,
And waited patiently about
till Mary did appear.

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?
"Why does the lamb love Mary so,"
the eager children cry.

"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
The lamb, you know, the lamb, you know,
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"
 the teacher did reply.

In popular culture

• Thomas Edison recited the first stanza of this poem to test his invention of the phonograph in 1877, making this the second audio recording to be successfully made and played back. In 1923, Edison's friend Henry Ford moved a building to the grounds of the Wayside Inn from Sterling, Massachusetts, which he believed was the original schoolhouse mentioned in this poem.
• Chubby Checker's first hit, "The Class", featured vocal impressions of the song as it would be performed by Elvis Presley, the Chipmunks, Cozy Cole, and his own near-namesake, Fats Domino.
• Paul McCartney and Wings released a version of the song, with a new melody by McCartney, as a single in 1972.
• Mark Alburger's "Mary Variations" (1985) transform the tune into a Chinese pentatonic scale, an Indian raga, the Dies Irae, a medieval isorhythm, "Sumer Is Icumen In", and the music of Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Scott Joplin, Igor Stravinsky, 12-bar blues, Sergei Prokofiev, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Terry Riley, Sting, and John Barry.
• Otis Redding recorded a version of the song in 1963 which became one of most well-known standards of soul music.
• The rhyme has been used as an archetypal mantra against telepathy, featured in Babylon 5 and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Focusing on the rhyme helps shield one's thoughts from intrusion. Also, a modified version was used as a passphrase in "Racing Mars", an episode of Babylon 5: "Lyta had a little Vorlon/her skin was pale as snow./Everywhere that Lyta went/the Vorlon was sure to go."
• The Histeria! episode "Writers of the Purple Prose" featured a poem titled Mary Had a Little Lamb 2000, in which Mary (played by Susanna Susquahanna) has her lamb cloned, lampooning the controversy of Dolly the Sheep.
• Mary's Little Lamb is a 1935 animated short film.
• The Barmy Army, devoted fans of the English cricket team, often mock Australian cricketers and cricket fans by singing the words of the Australian national anthem to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and vice-versa.
• A popular version among the Lisp community says "Mary had a little lambda/Its syntax white as snow/And every program Mary wrote/She wrote in Lisp, you know."^[5]
• Stevie Ray Vaughan released his version of "Mary had a little lamb" in 1983 on his record "Texas Flood"
• The song's melody is used in the anime Mayo Chiki! as a BGM while presenting its sponsors before and/or after each episode. It is entitled "Mary-san no Hitsuji" on the series' original soundtrack CD.

Media

Note: This melody is the British version, which is slightly different from the American version.

References

1. ^ Full text of Poems for our children: including Mary had a little lamb : designed for families, Sabbath schools, and infant schools : written to inculcate moral truths and virtuous sentiments
2. ^ Roulstone, John; Mary (Sawyer) and her friends (1928). The Story of Mary's Little Lamb. Dearborn: Mr. & Mrs. Henry Ford. pp. 8. 
3. ^ Mary Had A Little Lamb. Song Facts
4. ^ Worcester Telegram & Gazette News
5. ^ Mary had a