Sing a Song of Sixpence

Which king is counting his money and why are there blackbirds in a pie?

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird,
And pecked off her nose.

What's the story behind Sing a Song of Sixpence?

As with lots of nursery rhymes, no one's certain what Sing a Song of Sixpence is about, but the king mentioned could be Henry VIII.

He loved to spend money and famously took lots of land and wealth from the Church, so it's easy to see why he might be the one "counting out his money" in the rhyme.

The queen eating delicious bread and honey could be Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the maid – an old term for an unmarried lady – might be Anne Boleyn, his second wife.

Were blackbirds really baked in a pie?

No – although the rhyme mentions "blackbirds baked in a pie", no birds would have been harmed in the making of this dish.

In the Tudor period, cooks were out to impress with exciting displays of food. They baked an empty pie crust, put live blackbirds inside the cooked crust and then put the lid on.

When the pie was put in front of the king, the blackbirds flew out in a spectacular display. Afterwards, a real pie would've been brought out to eat.

  • An old silver coin featuring a crest and inscriptions, isolated on a white background.

    This sixpence is from the Tudor period, around the time when Henry VIII was king.

  • Illustration of the pirate blackbeard in action, wielding a sword and pistol, with a skull and crossbones flag and cannons in the background.

    Could Sing a Song of Sixpence really be about Blackbeard and pirates?

Could it really be about a pirate code?

As today, in the 18th century, piracy (attacking and robbing other ships at sea) was against the law. So, whenever pirates needed to recruit members into their crew, they would have to use a secret code.

Some think that Sing a Song of Sixpence was originally one of these coded messages, sung in pubs across the world by the crew of a notorious pirate called Blackbeard.

According to this idea, "the king" wasn’t a king at all, but Blackbeard himself, and "the queen" was his ship called The Queen Anne.

Blackbeard paid his crew “sixpence” per day, plus some whisky made from a grain called “rye”. The “blackbirds” could be the crew dressed in black. They are “baked” (hiding) inside the “pie” (pirate ship) ready to “sing” (surprise the other ship).

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