Lavender's Blue Lyrics
Sung slowly, Lavender's Blue is one of the gentlest songs in the nursery. Its most famous line is a promise: when I am king, you shall be queen.
Lavender's Blue
Lavender's blue, diddle, diddle!
Lavender's green;
When I am king, diddle, diddle!
You shall be queen.
More verses
Call up your men, diddle, diddle!
Set them to work;
Some to the plough, diddle, diddle!
Some to the cart.
Some to make hay, diddle, diddle!
Some to cut corn;
While you and I, diddle, diddle!
Keep ourselves warm.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/lavenders-blue/
- Type
- Lullabies
- Tune
- Traditional
- Best for ages
- 0 to 6 years
What Does Lavender's Blue Mean?
The singer imagines being king and choosing a queen, then giving orders to the household: some to the plough, some to the cart, some to make hay and some to cut the corn. While everyone else is busy on the farm, the king and queen stay warm and cozy by the fire.
Lavender really can look both blue and green. The flowers are blue-purple and the leaves are grey-green, which may be how the first line came about.
History and Origin
The song grew out of a much longer ballad sold on printed sheets in England in the late 1600s. Over the next two centuries it was cut down to the few soft, sleepy verses that ended up in nursery books, including Walter Crane's The Baby's Opera (1877), the source of the words here. Modern versions usually sing "dilly, dilly" instead of "diddle, diddle".
In the late 1940s a new song based on it, Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly), became a hit through the Disney film So Dear to My Heart.
Learning Activities
- Smell it: if you have lavender in the garden or a lavender bag, let your child smell it before bedtime.
- Color match: look at a lavender plant and decide together whether it is more blue or more green.
- Farm jobs: for older children, act out the farm jobs from the second and third verses.