Brian O'Lynn Lyrics
Brian O'Lynn has no breeches, so he buys a sheepskin and makes himself a pair with the skin outside and the wool inside. The four lines end with his own cheerful verdict: that is warm. It is also a stanza of an old folk song.
Brian O'Lynn
Bryan O'Lin had no breeches to wear,
So he bought him a sheepskin and made him a pair.
With the skinny side out, and the woolly side in,
"Ah, ha, that is warm!" said Bryan O'Lin.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/brian-olynn/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Brisk and pleased with itself, with the last line sung like a happy shout
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Brian O'Lynn Mean?
The name is spelled Brian O'Lynn here, the way folk-song collectors write it. The Little Mother Goose, where these lines come from, prints it as Bryan O'Lin.
Breeches are trousers, in old times usually ones that end at the knee. Brian has none, so he makes his own. He buys a sheepskin, which is a sheep's hide with the wool left on, and sews it into a pair. The skin side faces out and the woolly side faces in, so the soft fleece lies against his legs. His own comment in the last line, "Ah, ha, that is warm!", is the joke: he is delighted with something very odd.
The lines rhyme in pairs, wear with pair and in with O'Lin. A child usually finds the last rhyme before the words arrive. It is also a small story about making do: no trousers, so he makes some.
History and Origin
Folk-song collectors know Brian O'Lynn as a song with many verses and many versions. The song is usually called Irish, but the folk-song scholar Kenneth S. Goldstein wrote that it is probably Scottish in origin, and a Belfast broadside from around 1850 to 1870 opens with a Scotsman. The earliest definite sighting in print that the Mainly Norfolk folk-song site gives is in Joseph Ritson's The North Country Chorister of 1802, though the song may be older.
The sheepskin-breeches verse turns up in several versions of the song. The Little Mother Goose (1912) prints this one stanza alone as a rhyme for children.
Learning Activities
- Feel the fleece: touch a piece of sheepskin, a wool blanket or a fleece, and compare the two sides.
- Draw Brian: draw him in his new breeches with the wool showing on the inside, then talk about why that would be warm.
- Make-do dressing: give a child a scarf, a cushion cover and a belt and ask what they could make a pair of trousers from.
- Say the last line: each child says Ah, ha, that is warm! in a different voice, such as a whisper or a deep voice.