Nursery Rhymes

Solomon Grundy

Where the rhyme comes from

Nobody knows who wrote Solomon Grundy. The rhyme was first printed in James Orchard Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of England, usually dated 1842 — a book whose title page describes its contents as “collected chiefly from oral tradition”. No earlier printing is known to us, so for now the trail begins with Halliwell. It is number 19299 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

The words above are Halliwell’s, as they stand in the fifth edition of his book (1886). Many modern versions smooth them a little — “Grew worse on Friday”, and a closing “That was the end of Solomon Grundy” — and both wordings are perfectly legitimate. In that edition Halliwell files the rhyme among his “Tales”, between There Was a Crooked Man and Robin the Bobbin, and, unlike many of its neighbours, gives it no note at all: no suggestion of where it came from or what it meant.

The rhyme has travelled since. In 1921 Philippe Soupault made a French version of it into an account of his own life, published in the magazine Littérature — a later adaptation, which tells us the rhyme was known in France by then and nothing about where it began. And if your search for the rhyme turned up mostly comic books, that is because a DC Comics character takes his name from it.

What does it mean?

A life in a week. Our reading is the plain one. Each day carries one of the great events of a life as it was once marked — birth, christening, marriage, illness, death and burial — so the rhyme folds a whole lifetime into seven days. It is a small, slightly macabre joke about how quickly it all goes, and at the same time a tidy run through the days of the week in order. It is now often used to learn the days, though we know of no early source saying it was made for that purpose. Shakespeare’s “seven ages of man” speech offers a comparison of shape — a life told in stages — but we know of nothing that connects the two.

No hidden story. Plenty of nursery rhymes have had secret political meanings pinned on them. Solomon Grundy, as far as we can tell, has been spared: we found no evidence of any hidden or satirical meaning, and Halliwell prints it as bare narration without a word of commentary. We know of nothing to suggest that Solomon Grundy was a real person, either.

Two rhymes for one week. It makes a neat pair with Monday’s Child, the other great days-of-the-week rhyme. Monday’s Child tells a fortune by the day you were born on; Solomon Grundy is born on a Monday and has used up all seven days by the last line.

Sharing it with children

Give every line an action and the days stick. Rock a baby in your arms for Monday, sprinkle a little water for Tuesday’s christening, link arms for Wednesday’s wedding, hold your tummy and groan for Thursday, groan louder for Friday, flop dramatically for Saturday and lie very still for Sunday — then sit up for “This is the end”. Once the actions are learnt, call out only the day and let the child do the rest.

For counting, hold up one finger for each day, starting with a thumb on Monday, so that Sunday lands on the seventh finger. Ask how many days Solomon lived, then try the days backwards from Sunday, folding a finger down each time.

Some children will stop and ask whether this is a sad rhyme. It is a fair question, and an honest answer works well: it is a sort of joke, because nobody’s life really fits into one week, and Solomon managed to do a great many things in his. Then ask what they would like to do with their own week — which leads nicely to the verses below.

Extra verses to sing

These verses aren’t traditional — they’re ours. The old rhyme packs a whole life into seven days, so here are two gentler weeks instead, and a pattern children can borrow for a week of their own.

More rhymes to explore

• Monday’s Child — the other days-of-the-week rhyme, which tells a fortune by the day you were born rather than running a whole life through one week
• Thirty Days Hath September — the great calendar rhyme for the months, as Solomon Grundy is for the days
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor — another rhyme that runs through the shapes a grown-up life might take, counted out one by one