Ladybird Ladybird

"Ladybird Ladybird"
Nursery rhyme
Published	c. 1744
Songwriter(s)	Unknown

"Ladybird Ladybird" (sometimes rendered as "Ladybug Ladybug", particularly in the US) is an English-language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 16215.

This traditional verse relates to Ladybugs or Ladybirds, brightly coloured insects commonly viewed as lucky. The English version has been dated to at least 1744, when it appeared in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Songbook Vol. 2. The verse has several popular forms, including:

A shorter, grimmer version is also widespread:

Ann who hides may also be Nan, Anne or Little Anne. She may have hidden under a warming pan, porridge pan, frying pan or even a pudding pan. Some variants are radically different:

The 'little one' also may not be hiding at all, as in the following:

And from Peterborough:

Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebugs.

From Favorite Poems Old and New, Selected for boys and girls by Helen Ferris (1957):

From Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall:

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