Pop Goes the Weasel Lyrics
Everyone waits for the pop. Pop Goes the Weasel builds up slowly and ends with a jump, which is why toddlers ask for it again and again.
Pop Goes the Weasel
Half a pound of tup'ny rice,
Half a pound of treacle;
Mix it up and make it nice,
Pop goes the weasel.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/pop-goes-the-weasel/
- Type
- Action Songs, Animal Rhymes
- Tune
- Traditional
- Best for ages
- 1 to 6 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Half a pound of tup'ny rice | Crouch down low and stir a pretend pot. |
| Half a pound of treacle | Keep stirring, slowly rising. |
| Mix it up and make it nice | Stir faster, now almost standing. |
| Pop goes the weasel | Jump up high on POP. |
What Does Pop Goes the Weasel Mean?
This verse is a little recipe: half a pound of cheap rice (tup'ny means twopenny, costing two pence) and half a pound of treacle, the British word for a dark, sticky syrup like molasses. Mix them together and, pop, the weasel appears.
What the weasel means is one of the great nursery rhyme puzzles. A popular explanation is Cockney rhyming slang, where "weasel and stoat" means coat and "pop" means to pawn something for money. Nobody has proved it, and for small children the pop is all that matters.
History and Origin
The tune was a dance craze in England and the United States in the early 1850s, and it has been a children's song ever since. The verse here was collected in Yorkshire by Alice Bertha Gomme for her 1898 book of traditional games, where children sang it in two facing rows before choosing partners and whirling around.
In North America, most children know a different first verse, about a monkey chasing a weasel around a mulberry bush. Both are sung to the same tune.
Learning Activities
- Jack-in-the-box: crouch down during the verse and spring up on "pop". Many jack-in-the-box toys play this exact tune.
- Guess the pop: sing slowly and make children wait for the pop, then surprise them by singing it early.
- Taste test: try a spoonful of rice pudding with a little syrup, the closest modern thing to the recipe.