Common modern versions include: Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, And she shall have music wherever she goes.

[3] The modern rhyme is the best known of a number of verses beginning with the line "Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross", some of which are recorded earlier.

These include a verse printed in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (c. 1744), with the lyrics: Ride a cock-horse To Banbury Cross, To see what Tommy can buy; A penny white loaf, A penny white cake, And a two-penny apple-pie.

[2] The version printed in Tommy Thumb's Song Book in America in 1788, which may have been in the original (c. 1744) edition, has the "fine lady", but the next extant version, in The Tom Tit's Song Book (printed in London around 1790), had: A ring on her finger, A bonnet of straw, The strangest old woman That ever you saw.

[2] The instability of the early recorded lyrics has not prevented considerable speculation about the meaning of the rhyme.