There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun
There was a little man,
And he had a little gun,
And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead;
He went to the brook,
And saw a little duck,
And shot it right through the head, head, head.
He carried it home
To his old wife Joan,
And bade her a fire to make, make, make;
To roast the little duck
He had shot in the brook,
And he’d go and fetch her the drake, drake, drake.
Origins
It appears in collections like The Only True Mother Goose Melodies (1833, Boston) and was already considered “traditional” then, so it’s likely older. Some folklorists connect it loosely with rustic hunting songs, where the rhyme and repetition make it easy for children to chant.
Meaning
Unlike rhymes that disguise politics or satire, this one seems more like a simple hunting ditty. The repetition (“lead, lead, lead… make, make, make… drake, drake, drake”) is what makes it memorable — it almost feels like a song to clap along to.
But it’s a bit jarring to modern ears, since the rhyme casually describes killing a duck for dinner. That wasn’t unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries — children’s rhymes often reflected everyday life, and hunting for food was ordinary.
