Pop! Goes the Weasel

This rhyme was written in the 1800s. It could be that the rhyme is written in Cockney rhyming slang – a popular way of speaking in Victorian London’s East End, which people used to disguise what they were saying.

In this idea, "weasel" means "coat" and "pop" is about pawning possessions (which you can find out about lower down).

Other people think that the rhyme is about some of the weavers who lived and worked in an area of east London called Spitalfields. When weaving fabrics, they would use a machine called a weasel, which made a popping sound.

A "pop shop" is a slang term for a pawnbrokers, which is why it might be the "pop" referred to in the rhyme.

Pawning was when people took their household items like clothes, jewellery and crockery to a pawnbrokers and left them there in return for money.

When the person paid back the money, plus a little extra, the pawnbroker gave them their things back. If they didn't pay back the money after a year, the pawnbroker could put the items in the shop window and sell them.

In the late 1600s many people called Huguenots left France because they were being treated terribly due to their religion. Lots of them moved to Spitalfields in east London and became silk weavers.

When weaving fabrics, spinners used a "weasel" – a machine that measured out yarn. It made a popping sound when it measured the right amount.

Weaving was difficult and tiring work, so the weavers’ minds might wander or – to put it another way – go "up and down the City Road". Their dreaming was interrupted whenever the weasel went "pop".

Tuppenny means "two pennies" which was the cost of one pound of rice pudding at the time. Treacle is the gooey, sugary syrup which could be put on top of rice pudding.