If Wishes Were Horses Lyrics
If wishing were enough, everyone would have everything. This short rhyme turns an old saying into a joke about turnips, watches and pots and pans.
If Wishes Were Horses
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side.
And if "ifs" and "ands"
Were pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/if-wishes-were-horses/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does If Wishes Were Horses Mean?
The first line is a proverb: if wishes turned into horses, even the poorest beggar would be riding one. In other words, wishing does not make things happen. The rhyme then gets sillier, imagining turnips as pocket watches and every "if" and "and" turned into pots and pans.
The punchline is about tinkers, traveling menders who went from village to village fixing pots and pans. If words were pots and pans, there would be so many that nobody would need a tinker at all.
History and Origin
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" was an everyday saying long before it became a nursery rhyme, and it is still used today. The rhyme version, with the turnip watches and the tinkers, is the one printed in The Real Mother Goose (1916) and in older Mother Goose books.
Learning Activities
- Wish list: ask children to name three wishes, then talk about which ones they could make happen with some work.
- Turnip watch: draw a watch with a turnip for a face, just like in the rhyme.