There Was a Rat, for Want of Stairs Lyrics
With no staircase in his house, a rat has to slide down a rope to reach the place where he says his prayers.
There Was a Rat, for Want of Stairs
There was a Rat, for want of stairs,
Went down a rope to say his prayers.
More verses from the original
There was a Rat, for want of stairs,
Went down a rope to say his prayers.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/there-was-a-rat-for-want-of-stairs/
- Type
- Animal Rhymes
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 3 to 6 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Went down a rope | Hand over hand, pretend to lower yourself down a rope. |
| To say his prayers | Fold your hands and bow your head. |
What Does There Was a Rat, for Want of Stairs Mean?
The joke is in the first four words. The rat had no stairs, which in those days meant "for want of" them, or because he did not have any. To get from one floor to the next, he has to climb down a rope, which makes a very ordinary household problem look like an adventure. The last line shows him doing something quiet and good, saying his prayers.
Tiny rhymes like this are useful for small children because they can learn them in a few minutes. The rope action also invites movement, so you can use it as a game as well as a verse.
History and Origin
This two-line rhyme appears in Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, where it sits between longer verses, and in The Little Mother Goose (1912). Little is known about where it came from, and no author is known.
Nursery books of the 1800s often filled their pages with these tiny rhymes about animals doing human things, such as a rat saying prayers. They worked as picture captions and gave artists something to draw, so the rhyme was likely kept alive as much by illustrators as by parents.
Learning Activities
- Rope climb: hang a ribbon from a table edge and let a small toy rat go down it.
- Draw the house: draw a rat house with no stairs and decide how else the rat could get around.
- Say it twice: say the two lines slowly and then quickly to feel the rhythm.