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'Hickory Dickory Dock' is a children's nursery rhyme, also sometimes called 'Hickety Dickety Dock'

Hickory Dickory Dock

The mouse ran up the clock

The clock struck one

The mouse ran down (or "and down he run", or "down the mouse ran")

Hickory Dickory Dock

Another rhyme, 'Dickery Dickery Dare' (or sometimes called "Hickory Dickory Dare") is often used as a second verse to "Hickory Dickory Dock."^[1]

Dickery dickery dare

The pig flew up in the air

The man in brown

Soon brought him down

Dickery dickery dare

1. [1]

Contents

Parodies

Language- and word-play

Trivia

External links

Parodies

:Hickory Dickory Dock
:Three mice ran up the clock
:The clock struck one
:The other two escaped with minor injuries
:Hickory Dickory Dock,
:An elephant ran up the clock.
:The clock is currently being repaired.

Language- and word-play

A book by Luis d'Antin Van Rooten, in which he is allegedly the editor of a manuscript by the fictional François Charles Fernand d’Antin, called ''Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames'' (the title is in French, but when pronounced, sounds like the English ''"Mother Goose Rhymes"''), contains many poems in French which sound like well-known English nursery rhymes. Here is "Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?" ("Hickory Dickory Dock"):
:Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?¹
:De Meuse² raines,³ houp! de cloques.⁴
:De quelles loques ce turque coin.
:Et ne d'anes ni rennes,
:Ecuries des curés d'Oc.
An automated translation renders this in English as:
:And who laughs at the priests of Oc?
:From Meuse groove, houp! blisters.
:Of who wrecks this Turkish corner.
:And of neither asses nor reindeers,
:Stables of the priests of Oc.
Notes:
¹"Oc" (or Languedoc), is an ancient region of France, with its capital at Toulouse.
²"Meuse," or Maas, River, 560 miles long, traversing France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
³"Raines," old french for frogs (from the Latin, ranae)
⁴"cloques," are warts.
The poem in French is a graceful tribute to the monks of Languedoc, who were a humble and holy group. The poem goes on to warn that those who laugh at the monks will have frogs from the Meuse River jump at them and give them warts. They were so humble that their Turkish Corners are made of rags, and they didn't indulge themselves with fancy mules or reindeer.
("Oc" may refer to Occitania. Van Rooten supplies copious footnotes in a parody of academic scholarship).
The point is that a reader with a knowledge of both English nursery rhymes and intermediate French would at first try to comprehend the meaning of the purported English translation ("aided" by the help of Van Rooten's copious footnotes, which thus become a parody), but then gradually, as it is realized which nursery rhyme is being sabotaged, would find humor in recognizing how cleverly the "editor" constructed the written French text to make the audible English rhyme.

Trivia

★ A Trivial Pursuit question asks "What time did the mouse run up the clock?" The answer is given as 1 o'clock, but this could be wrong since the mouse did not run ''down'' until the clock had struck one.

★ The plot of a Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie is loosely based on this nursery rhyme (Hickory Dickory Dock, 1955).

★ As with many other nursery rhymes there are two substantially different melodies, one associated with Great Britain and the other with North America.

External links

★ PDF file of ''Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames''