Pancake Day
Great A, little a,
This is pancake day;
Toss the ball high,
Throw the ball low,
Those that come after
May sing heigh-ho!
Origins
The rhyme “Great A, little a, this is pancake day…” appears in early printed collections from the late 1700s and early 1800s, including Gammer Gurton’s Garland (1784) and later in Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes of England (1842). It belongs to the tradition of Shrove Tuesday—known in Britain as Pancake Day.
On this day, households used up eggs, butter, and sugar before the fasting season of Lent. While adults cooked pancakes, children spilled onto the streets to play noisy games. They tossed balls, beanbags, and even—according to a few accounts—pancakes themselves. The rhyme acted like a start signal for games: someone would chant the line while tossing an object into the air. Whoever failed to catch it was “out.”
In some regions, children chanted it as they went door to door collecting ingredients from neighbors. It was basically early trick-or-treating, but with flour and eggs.
