One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

A common version is given in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes:

One, two, buckle my shoe;

Three, four, knock at the door;

Five, six, pick up sticks;

Seven, eight, lay them straight;

Nine, ten, a big fat hen;

Eleven, twelve, dig and delve;

Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting;

Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen;

Seventeen, eighteen, maids in waiting;

Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.[1]

Other sources give differing lyrics.[2]

In his The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children (1888), the American collector of folklore, Henry Carrington Bolton (1843-1903), quoted an old lady who remembered a longer version of this rhyme as being used in Wrentham, Massachusetts as early as 1780. Beyond the first four lines, it proceeded:

Nine, ten, kill a fat hen;

Eleven, twelve, bake it well;

Thirteen, fourteen, go a-courtin;

Fifteen, sixteen, go to milkin’;

Seventeen, eighteen, do the bakin’;

Nineteen, twenty, the mill is empty;

Twenty-one, change the gun;

Twenty-two, the partridge flew;

Twenty-three, she lit on a tree;

Twenty-four, she lit down lower….

Twenty-nine, the game is mine;

Thirty, make a kerchy.

Some of the final lines Bolton's informant could no longer remember.[3]

In the UK the rhyme was first recorded in Songs for the Nursery, published in London in 1805. This version differed beyond the number twelve, with the lyrics:

Thirteen, fourteen, draw the curtain,

Fifteen sixteen, the maid's in the kitchen,

Seventeen, eighteen, she's in waiting,

Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty.[1]

A version published five years later in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1810) was titled "Arithmetick" and had the following different lines:

Three, four, lay down lower ...

Eleven twelve, who will delve...

Fifteen, sixteen, maids a-kissing...

Nineteen, twenty, my belly's empty.[1]

In 1842, James Orchard Halliwell recorded "Shut the door" at the close of the second line.[4]

In April 2023, a viral TikTok video was reported that used a topical variation of the song's lyrics:

Three, four, buckle some more;

Five, six, Nike kicks.[5][6]

An 1869 endpaper by Walter Crane

The rhyme was sometimes published alone in illustrated editions. That with lithographs by Caroline R. Baillie (Edinburgh, 1857) had an oblong format[7] showing domestic 18th-century interiors.[8] There were also two editions of the rhyme published from London, both illustrated by Walter Crane. The first was a single volume picture-book (John Lane, 1869) with end-papers showing a composite of the 1 – 10 sequence and of the 11 – 20 sequence. It was followed in 1910 by The Buckle My Shoe Picture Book, containing other rhymes too. This had coloured full-page illustrations: composites for lines 1-2 and 3–4, and then one for each individual line.[9]

In America the rhyme was used to help young people learn to count and was also individually published. Among these, the distinctive illustrations by Courtland Hoppin (1834-1876) devoted to each verse first appeared in editions published at the end of 1866.[10] In Old Mother Goose's Rhymes And Tales (London and New York, 1889) there was only a single page given to the rhyme,[11] illustrated by Constance Haslewood in the style of Kate Greenaway.[12]