How Many Miles to Babylon? Lyrics
"How many miles to Babylon?" "Threescore miles and ten." This question-and-answer rhyme was sung by generations of children as the call for a chasing game.
How Many Miles to Babylon?
How many miles to Babylon?
Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/how-many-miles-to-babylon/
- Type
- Action Songs, Mother Goose
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| How many miles to Babylon? | One group calls the question across the playground. |
| Threescore miles and ten | The other group answers. |
| Can I get there by candle-light? | The first group asks again. |
| Yes, and back again | On the answer, everyone runs to swap sides without being caught. |
What Does How Many Miles to Babylon? Mean?
Threescore miles and ten means seventy miles, because a score is twenty. The traveler asks if they can get there by candle-light, meaning before night falls, and is told yes, and back again. It is a playful way of saying a long journey is easy if you are quick, which is exactly what the chasing game tests.
History and Origin
The rhyme appears in old American and British Mother Goose books, including editions of Mother Goose's Melody, and folklorists recorded many versions of the game that goes with it. "Babylon" was a famous faraway city from the Bible, so it stood for somewhere very distant.
Learning Activities
- Play the game: two lines face each other across a space; after the last line, children run to the other side while a catcher in the middle tags them.
- Math moment: work out threescore and ten (3 times 20, plus 10).
- Candle-light: talk about how people traveled before electric lights.