Willy Boy, Willy Boy Lyrics
A question, an answer and an invitation to come along. Willy Boy is off to the meadow to help make the hay, and his friend wants to go too.
Willy Boy, Willy Boy
"Willy boy, Willy boy, where are you going?
I will go with you, if that I may."
"I'm going to the meadow to see them a-mowing,
I'm going to help them to make the hay."
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/willy-boy-willy-boy/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Traditional
- Best for ages
- 2 to 6 years
What Does Willy Boy, Willy Boy Mean?
One child asks Willy where he is going and whether they can come. Willy says he is going to the meadow to watch the grown-ups mowing, and to help make the hay. Haymaking was one of the big events of the farming year, and in the past whole villages, children included, helped out.
Mowing is cutting the long grass, and making hay means spreading it out to dry in the sun, turning it and then gathering it up to feed animals through the winter.
History and Origin
The rhyme is in James Orchard Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England from the 1840s and in most Mother Goose books since. Its question-and-answer shape is very old. Many children's rhymes, like Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid?, begin with the same question.
Learning Activities
- Where are you going? One child asks, the other answers with a new place and a new job: "I'm going to the kitchen to help make the bread."
- Hay play: in summer, visit a park or farm after the grass has been cut and smell the drying hay.