Frog Went A Courtin': A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Frog Went a-Courtin'," the tale of a frog who woos a mouse and must first win the consent of her Uncle Rat, has a paper trail running back more than four centuries. The Traditional Ballad Index files it as Roud 16 and reports it from Britain, Ireland, Atlantic Canada and every part of the United States, under titles that include "A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go"[1]. Its first possible trace is in The Complaynt of Scotland, a Scottish prose work that the sources consulted date variously to 1548 or 1549, which mentions shepherds singing of a frog at a mill door[2]; the Ballad Index notes that the identification, though widely accepted, cannot be proved[1]. An entry in the London Stationers' Register for November 1580 describes a strange wedding of a frog and a mouse[1][2], and the earliest known musical version is Thomas Ravenscroft's four-voice setting, "The marriage of the frogge and the mouse," in his Melismata of 1611[3][2].

Small carved wooden Japanese netsuke of two warty frogs clambering over each other

Netsuke of Two Frogs Wrestling, Japan, wood, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its frogs; it has no connection to the song.

Some writers have read the song as a satire on a French prince's courtship of Elizabeth I, with the frog standing for the suitor, named variously as the Duc d'Alençon or the Duke of Anjou[2][1]. That remains speculation. The Ballad Index, and Rod Stradling as quoted on Mainly Norfolk, both note that the Scottish reference is older than Elizabeth's reign, and Mainly Norfolk also cites A. L. Lloyd's verdict that there is "no firm evidence" for such readings[2][1].

The song put down especially deep roots in North America, which Rod Stradling says accounts for most of its many entries in Roud's index[2]. Chubby Parker, singing with tenor banjo and whistling, recorded it as "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" for Columbia in New York on 23 August 1928 (Columbia 15296-D)[4][1], and Harry Smith later chose that side for his Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways, 1952)[5]. A Library of Congress catalog card shows the North Carolina singer Bascom Lamar Lunsford recording "Froggy Went A-Courtin'" in New York in February 1935[6], and Bob Dylan closed his 1992 album Good as I Been to You with "Froggie Went a Courtin'"[7].

Find books with Frog Went A Courtin' for sale →

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Frog Went A-Courting".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "The Frog and the Mouse".
  3. Choral Public Domain Library: "Melismata (Thomas Ravenscroft)".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UCSB): "Columbia matrix W146879. King Kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o / Chubby Parker".
  5. Mainly Norfolk: "Anthology of American Folk Music".
  6. Library of Congress: "Froggy went a-courtin'" (Bascom Lamar Lunsford, 1935).
  7. The Official Bob Dylan Site: "Good as I Been to You".