Origin

This short jingle was printed in Kate Greenaway’s Mother Goose (1881), one of the most famous illustrated nursery collections of the Victorian age. Earlier versions also appear in James Orchard Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of England (1840s), showing that the rhyme was already circulating in oral tradition before Greenaway gave it her elegant treatment.

Meaning

There’s no moral here — just a playful picture. A cat gets stuck in a plum tree, and instead of climbing down on her own, she’s bribed with fruit. The silly twist is what makes it memorable. The singsong opening and closing (“diddlty, diddlty, dumpty”) are filler sounds, added for rhythm and fun, perfect for children to chant.

Cultural Background

Greenaway’s 1881 Mother Goose helped cement many of these smaller, once obscure jingles into print. Her book was a runaway success, reprinted in multiple editions, and carried nursery rhymes into middle-class drawing rooms with her distinctive illustrations.

Diddlty, diddlty, dumpty belongs to the family of nonsense jingles — short, musical verses where rhythm and rhyme matter more than story. Its sound resemblance to the famous Humpty Dumpty may also have kept it alive in children’s memory.