6min chapter

Stuff You Missed in History Class cover image

Six Impossible Episodes: Mother Goose 3

Stuff You Missed in History Class

CHAPTER

Six Pence, a Pocket Full of Rye, Four and 20 Black Birds Baked in a Pie

There are multiple references combining six pence with singing going back to the 17th century, including a line from Shakespeare's 12th night. The first written appearance of Sing a Song of Six Pence is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Songbook, published in 1744,. 46 years before Pie was named Poet Laureate. In 1999 Snopes.com published an explanation involving the pirate blackbeard using song to recruit pirates for his crew.

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