Alphabe Thursday … T is for Tom, Tom

Tom, Tom the piper’s son,

Stole a pig and away he run;

The pig was eat

And Tom was beat,

And Tom went howling down the street.

Children are often concerned about the stolen pig being eaten immediately. It would seem modern illustrators depict the scene incorrectly. The pig was not a live one but a sweetmeat model sold by a street hawker, as it is narrated in chapbooks.

The man would make pigs from paste and filled their bellies with currants and added two in the head for eyes.  

Vendors of such pigs were common in the 18th century and their street cry  became a nursery song.

A long tail’d pig,

Or, a short tail’d pig,

Or a pig without any tail,

A boar pig, or a sow pig,

Or a pig with a curly tail.

Take hold of the tail and eat off his head;

and then you’ll be sure the pig hog is dead.