Boy and the Sparrow

A little cock-sparrow sat on a green tree,
And he chirruped, he chirruped, so merry was he;
A naughty boy came with his wee bow and arrow,
Determined to shoot this little cock-sparrow.

"This little cock-sparrow shall make me a stew,
And his giblets shall make me a little pie, too."
"Oh, no," says the sparrow "I won't make a stew."
So he flapped his wings and away he flew.

Illustration by Blanche Fisher Wright

This short verse appears in many 19^th-century Mother Goose collections and anthologies of English nursery rhymes. It’s commonly printed as Boy and the Sparrow (or “The Little Cock-Sparrow”) in period collections.

On the surface it’s a tiny story: a cheerful sparrow is threatened by a boy who intends to make a stew and a pie, but the sparrow escapes. That simple plot — boy hunts, bird outwits him — fits a large group of animal-verses used with children, where animals talk or act to teach a small moral or amuse by reversal.

There’s also a historical layer. Sparrows were once common table fare in parts of Britain and Europe; trapping and eating small birds (and using their eggs) was ordinary rural practice, so lines about making a “stew” or “pie” would have registered as realistic, if grisly, detail to Victorian readers. The rhyme preserves that everyday domestic context while softening it with a talking bird and a quick escape.

Because it’s short, repetitive, and memorable, the verse circulated both as a printed nursery rhyme and orally as a chant or singing game in local collections. Modern editors tend to keep it as a curious rural fragment — a glimpse of how children’s verse borrowed language from the market, the kitchen, and everyday life.

Boy and the Sparrow