I Had a Little Husband
I had a little husband no bigger than my thumb,
I put him in a pint pot, and there I bid him drum;
I bought a little handkerchief to wipe his little nose,
And a pair of little garters to tie his little hose.
Origin
The nursery rhyme I Had a Little Husband shows up in print by the late 19th century in collections such as Sabine Baring-Gould’s A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes (1895). Its exact roots are older, though. The theme of a miniature husband or child links it to the much earlier English legend of Tom Thumb, a character already popular in the 17th century. The rhyme’s playful imagery—husband in a pint pot, garters for tiny hose—fits into that wider European fascination with thumb-sized heroes and absurd exaggerations.
Meaning
Unlike some rhymes with hidden political digs, this one seems mostly nonsense for fun. The comedy lies in repetition—everything is “little”: husband, horse, garters, nose. Children would delight in the ridiculous picture of a thumb-sized man doing ordinary adult things. Some scholars suggest it may poke fun at domestic life by shrinking its responsibilities down to absurd size, but there is no strong evidence of satire here.
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