A Long-Tail’d Pig

A Long-tail’d pig,
Or a short-tail’d pig,
Or a pig without a tail?
A sow-pig, or a boar-pig,
Or a pig with a curly tail?

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  • bibalu says:
    April 9, 2009 at 3:45 AM

    Some versions of this Nursery Rhyme have these additional two lines at the end:

    “Take hold of the tail and eat off his head,
    And then you’ll be sure the pig hog is dead”

    The Little Mother Goose (1912), illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, prints this Nursery Rhyme with a “Moral”:

    A LONG-TAILED pig,
    Or a short-tailed pig,
    Or a pig without e’er a tail,
    A sow-pig, or a boar-pig,
    Or a pig with a curly tail.
    MORAL:
    Take hold of his tail,
    And eat off his head,
    And then you will be sure
    The pig-hog is dead.

    This rhyme can be found in Harry’s Ladder to Learning (1850). The illustration is from The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897).

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