Ding Dong Bell
by Mother Goose (18th Cent.)
Ding dong bell,
The cat is in the well.
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Green.
What a naughty boy was that,
To drown poor Pussy cat.
Who never did any harm,
And kill'd the mice in his father's barn.
The University of Toronto Library notes that:
"Nursery rhyme reformers have recently taken particular objection to `Ding, dong, bell', claiming that children have been known to throw cats into ponds through the direct influence of this rhyme." The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. Iona and Peter Opie (1951; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), no. 134, p. 149. Perhaps the standard version today, rendered by the Opies as follows, mitigates the crime by adding a rescuer:
Ding, dong, bell,
Pussy's in the well.
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Green.
Who pulled her put?
Little Tommy Stout.
What a naughty boy was that,
To try to drown poor pussy cat,
Who never did him any harm,
And killed the mice in his father's barn.
