Valentine, Oh, Valentine Lyrics
A four-line greeting sung to a Valentine on Valentine's Day. The singer says good morning and asks the Valentine to curl their hair the way the singer does, two curls in front and two behind.
Valentine, Oh, Valentine
Valentine, oh, Valentine,
Curl your locks as I do mine;
Two before and two behind;
Good morrow to you, Valentine.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/valentine-oh-valentine/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Light and sing-song, one rising phrase for each line
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Valentine, Oh, Valentine Mean?
Good morrow is an old way of saying good morning. Morrow is the same word that is left in tomorrow, and it means the morning or the next day. The Valentine is whoever is being greeted, so the rhyme is a hello, not a story.
Locks are strands of hair, so "curl your locks as I do mine" is a friendly request that the other person style their hair the same way. The singer then says how that looks: two before and two behind, meaning two curls in front and two at the back. It is a bit like asking a friend to dress to match.
The first and last lines both end on Valentine, so the rhyme goes round like a circle, and mine in the second line rhymes with it. The easiest version for a child is to learn the first line and the last line, and join in on those.
History and Origin
James Orchard Halliwell wrote about the rhyme in Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales (1849). He says that in the western counties of England children, decked with wreaths and true-lover's knots, made one of their number their chief and marched from house to house singing it, some starting as early as six in the morning and calling out "To-morrow is come!" between verses. After the singing they made merry with what they had collected.
His version ends "two before and three behind". The copy used here, from Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes (Routledge, 1877), says "two behind", so even in the 1800s the number changed from book to book.
Learning Activities
- Door-to-door greeting: sing it to a neighbour or relative, in person or on a call, as the children in Halliwell's account did.
- Paper curls: curl strips of paper around a pencil, then stick two at the front and two at the back of a paper head.
- Good morrow: for one morning, greet everyone with good morrow and see who notices.
- Make a card: draw a card for a friend and write the first line inside.