The Queen of Hearts | No.2 |2025 Randem |

Описание: 👰💗🥧[Lyrics below] This nursery rhyme song has a melody I composed the 28.06.2025. Copyright by ©2025 Siri Randem. Please refer to me as the source, if you use my melody.The text is from the Mother Goose tradition, see below for references.

The text and illustration were published in 1883 in "Nursery rhymes : The Queen of Hearts, &c", Unknown (author) by Thomas Nelson & Sons (publisher) (https://digitalarchive.tpl.ca/objects...)

Other melodies were composed by:
Sidney Homer, published in 1920 in "Songs from Mother Goose : for voice and piano".
You may listen here:    • The Queen of Hearts | No.1 |1920 Homer | #...  
Lucy E. Broadwood, published in 1921:24 in "Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking-glass".
You may listen here:    • The Queen of Hearts | No.3 | 1921 Broadwoo...  

The full poem, consisting of several stanzas, was published much earlier, in "The European magazine, and London review vol.1" (Jan. - Jun. 1782), [Philological Society of London], 1782-1826: page 252, no. 300 at HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i....

"The Queen of Hearts" is found in any ordinary deck of playing cards, with the other "royals". During history, people have played cards for money, and many lost their house and home.

The Queen of Hearts also plays a part in the early English folk song and broadside ballad with the same name. The first line goes: "To the Queen of Hearts is the Ace of Sorrow".
You may listen here:    • The Queen of Hearts  | Broadside Ballad | ...  

"The Queen of Hearts" is also a well known fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1865 book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll (https://archive.org/details/alicesadv....

Going back to the first stanza of the poem, we find that it has been frequently used as a nursery rhyme since the 1700s. The other verses, called "The King of Spades", "The King of Clubs", and "The Diamond King", portray various domestic issues that are meant for adults, and have perhaps wandered into obscurity. The names point back to the royals in the deck of playing cards.

This is what I sing:

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day.
The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts.
And he took them clean away.
The King of Hearts
Called for the tarts.
And beat the knave full sore.
The Knave of Hearts
Brought back the tarts.
And vowed he'd steal no more.

La, la, la repeat...

In "The King and Queen of Hearts: An 1805 Book for Children" by Charles Lamb, Edward Verrall Lucas & William Mulready, the nursery rhyme held "center stage" (https://archive.org/details/kingandqu....
It concerns itself with "the Rogueries of the Knave who stole the Queen’s Pies". Each line of the poem gets its own rhyme. Here is the poem for the third line: "All on a summer's day":

Now first of May does summer bring
How bright and fine is every thing
After their dam the chickens run,
The green leave glitter in the sun.
While youths and maids in merry dance
Round rustic May poles do advance.

In 1844:39 J.O. Halliwell included the first stanza in the 3rd Edition of his "The Nursery Rhymes of England", but it was dropped from later editions (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i....

Around 1881 Frederick Warne & Co published the nursery rhyme in a lovely, illustrated book called "The queen of hearts" by Caldecott, Randolph, 1846-1886, ill (https://archive.org/details/queenofhe....

The nursery rhyme was also published in other illustrated children's books:
1895:136: "National Rhymes" by Gordon Browne, (https://archive.org/details/nationalr....
1895:53: "Nursery songs &rhymes" by Winifred Smith https://archive.org/details/nurseryso...
1901:50: "Denslow's Mother Goose [...]" by Denslow, W. W., 1856-1915 (https://archive.org/details/b1686237/....
1915:82: "Mother Goose" by Grover, Eulalie Osgood, 1873-1958; Richardson, Frederick, 1862-1937 (https://archive.org/details/mothergoo....
1916:109: "The Real Mother Goose", illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright (https://archive.org/details/realmothe...) See also Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10607....


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My Norwegian Song Books for Kids:
1. «Ta min hånd" av Siri Randem:
https://notebutikken.no/products/9790...
2. "Rundsanger og kanon", red. Siri Randem:
https://notebutikken.no/products/nmo1...

#nurserysong
#nurseryrhymesfortoddlers