Hannah Bantry in the Pantry Lyrics
Hannah Bantry sneaks into the pantry and gnaws a mutton bone with great gusto, until she finds she is not alone.
Hannah Bantry in the Pantry
Hannah Bantry in the pantry,
Eating a mutton bone;
How she gnawed it, how she clawed it,
When she found she was alone!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/hannah-bantry-in-the-pantry/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 3 to 7 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Eating a mutton bone | Pretend to hold a big bone in both hands and nibble. |
| How she gnawed it, how she clawed it | Make claws with your hands and scratch the air. |
| When she found she was alone | Look around with wide eyes. |
What Does Hannah Bantry in the Pantry Mean?
The pantry is the small room where food was kept. Hannah goes in alone and eats a mutton bone, a bone from a sheep, with all her might, gnawing and clawing at it. The last line says she did it all when she found she was alone, so she was glad nobody was watching.
The rhyme is mostly about its sounds, with the matching words gnawed and clawed and the long "o" in bone and alone, so it is good for practicing rhyme.
History and Origin
Andrew Lang printed this rhyme in The Nursery Rhyme Book (1897), where it appears next to "Little Miss Muffet." The book gives it no author.
The same book prints a close cousin of this rhyme, in which a character called Anthony shouts "Hie, hie" at a puss in the pantry gnawing a mutton bone.
Learning Activities
- Pantry search: look for foods in a real pantry and name each one.
- Rhyme pairs: find the rhyming pairs in the four lines and clap on each one.
- Act it out: one child is Hannah and another walks in on the last line.
- Sound words: make up other words that sound like chewing.