The Hobby-Horse
I had a little hobby-horse,
And it was dapple gray;
Its head was made of pea-straw,
Its tail was made of hay.
I sold it to an old woman
For a copper groat;
And I'll not sing my song again
Without another coat.
The Hobby-Horse goes back to a time when a “hobby-horse” wasn’t a term for a pastime — it was a literal children’s toy. A stick with a straw head, sometimes painted or wrapped in cloth. Kids rode it around pretending it was a real horse.
The rhyme captures that world in just a few lines. A child has a toy horse, handmade from whatever scraps were available (pea-straw and hay). Then he sells it for a copper groat, a tiny old English coin — barely worth anything. The punchline: he won’t repeat the song unless someone pays him with a better coat. In other words:
I’ll entertain you… but it’ll cost you.
