| The Weasel | |
|---|---|
 | |
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Real Name |
Unknown |
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First Appearance |
Folk song, first published in 1852 |
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Created by |
Folk song |
Origin[]
From Singing Games (1890) by Josephine Pollard. Illustration by Ferdinand Schuyler Math
Pop! Goes the Weasel" is a traditional old English song, a country dance, nursery rhyme, and singing game that emerged in the mid-19th century.
There has been much speculation about the meaning of the phrase and song title, "Pop Goes the Weasel". Some say a weasel is a tailor's flat iron, silver-plate dishes, a dead animal, a hatter's tool, or a spinner's weasel. One writer notes, "Weasels do pop their heads up when disturbed and it is quite plausible that this was the source of the name of the dance." Just like the dancers to this jig, the spinner's weasel revolves, but to measure the thread or yarn produced on a spinning wheel. Forty revolutions of most weasels produce eighty yards (73 m) of yarn or a skein. The weasel's wooden gears are designed to make a popping sound after the 40th revolution to tell the spinner that the skein is completed.
Iona and Peter Opie observed that no one seemed to know what the phrase meant at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s. It may just be a nonsensical phrase. However, one further explanation links the lyrics of the popular nursery rhyme to the East London colloquial dialect of the 1800’s, known as “Cockney Rhyming Slang”. In this dialect “weasel” relates to “weasel and stoat”, or coat, and “pop” relates the “pop shop” or pawnbrokers shop. The rhyme describes someone running short of money purchasing rice and treacle (metaphor for life’s essentials); “that’s the way the money goes”. Subsequently, this forces them to sell (pop) their coat (weasel) to the pawnbroker (pop shop).
Lyrics[]
Text Story from Ha Ha Comics #70.
Up and down the City Road, In and out the Eagle, That's the way the money goes, Pop! Goes the weasel.
Every night when I go out, The monkey's on the table, Take a stick and knock it off, Pop! Goes the weasel.
A penny for a spool of thread A penny for a needle, That's the way the money goes, Pop! Goes the weasel.
All around the cobbler's bench The monkey chased the weasel; The monkey thought 'twas all in fun, Pop! Goes the weasel.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of the Weasel from before January 1, 1931 are public domain in the US.
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Ha Ha Comics #70: Featured a text story titled Pop Goes the Weasel where a group of cottontail rabbits are being terrorized by a weasel. The smallest bunny named Fluff setup a trap in his rabbit hole to capture the weasel and succeeds. When the other ask him how he did it, Fluff explains that he baited the trap with a powder puff.
- Samson #13: In a story titled Pop Goes the Weasels, Samson deals with group of "weasels" from a rival construction company who are trying to get rid of the hero to stop him from helping with the construction of a government irrigation project.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Pop Goes the Weasel (1924) by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland
Public Domain Music Appearances[]
- In 1855, new lyrics were published by The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in England and Wales, turning it into a "School Song for Boys."
- In 1855, the Liverpool School for the Deaf and Dumb published the lyrics for their School Song, sung to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel."
- Sheet music published in 1857 provided an arrangement for the guitar, along with new political lyrics.
- Frank Tapp composed three works of large-scale variations for piano and orchestra based on the tune in 1915.
Notes[]
- The song appears twice in Wilbert Awdry’s The Railway Series; first in the 1958 book Duck and the Diesel Engine as ‘Pop Goes The Diesel’ in the story of the same name, then in the 1969 book Oliver the Western Engine as ‘Pop Goes Old Ollie’ in the story Toad Stands By. Both times the song has been rewritten to fit the narrative.
- In video game Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the music box will play "Pop! Goes the Weasel" when the Puppet is about to attack player after leaving the Music Box unwind.
- In the 2009 video game Plants vs. Zombies, the song can be heard when a Jack-in-the-Box Zombie is on the lawn, in which the song will stop playing when the zombie dies, its jack-in-the-box explodes, or gets taken away by a Magnet-shroom.
- During the opening theme of 1997 Cartoon Network's I Am Weasel, a parody of the melody "Pop Goes the Weasel" can be seen.
- In the original American dub of the anime Dragon Ball Z, the evil tyrant Frieza quotes the rhyme after killing the Earthling warrior Krillin.