Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

To this Swedish text a melody was written by Alice Tegnér for publication in the songbook Sjung med oss, Mamma!

[1] In the next surviving printing, in Mother Goose's Melody (c. 1765), the text remained the same, except the last lines, which were given as, "But none for the little boy who cries in the lane".

[1] Katherine Elwes Thomas in The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930) suggested the rhyme referred to resentment at the heavy taxation on wool.

[7] This explanation was advanced during debates over political correctness and the use and reform of nursery rhymes in the 1980s, but has no supporting historical evidence.

[7] In 1986 the British popular press reported a controversy over the rhyme's language, suggesting that "black" was being treated as a racial term.

[9] A similar controversy emerged in 1999 when reservations about the rhyme were submitted to Birmingham City Council by a working group on racism in children's resources.

[11] Commentators have asserted that these controversies have been exaggerated or distorted by some elements of the press as part of a general campaign against political correctness.