Chicamy Lyrics
Go round, go down the road, go round again: a four-line walking and spinning game from Kent with a nonsense chorus about washing feet.
Chicamy
Chicamy, chickamy, chimey O,
Down to the pond to wash their feet;
Bring them back to have some meat,
Chickamy, chickamy, chimey O.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/chicamy/
- Type
- Action Songs
- Tune
- Sung or chanted while walking
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Chicamy, chickamy, chimey O, | Hold hands and circle round and round. |
| Down to the pond to wash their feet; | Drop hands and walk a few steps along in a line, as if heading down the road. |
| Chickamy, chickamy, chimey O. | Stop and turn round and round to finish. |
What Does Chicamy Mean?
The chorus is a nonsense chant that bounces along like a skipping rhyme. The middle lines say that someone goes down to the pond to wash their feet and is brought back to have some meat. In older English, meat meant food of any kind, so the picture is a simple routine: wash up, come home, eat. The rhyme never says whose feet they are. The first word sounds a little like chicken, but that is only a guess.
History and Origin
Alice Bertha Gomme collected the game at Crockham Hill in Kent, from a correspondent named Miss Chase, and printed it in The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1894). She describes the moves exactly: the children sing the first line as they go round and round, move down the road a little for the second, and turn round and round as they end the rhyme.
Learning Activities
- Walk and turn: follow the three moves with a line of children: circle, walk, spin.
- Foot washing: on a warm day, set out a shallow tub and let children wash their feet and walk back to dry off, with an adult close by.
- Changing words: talk about what meat means now and what it meant then, and find other words that have shifted, like silly, which once meant happy.
- Make a chorus: invent your own nonsense refrain to chant on the circle.