page_title: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
section_title: Modern version
hierarchical_section_title: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep / Modern version
caption_attribution_description: English: Baa Baa Black Sheep by Dorothy M. Wheeler
context_page_description: "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" is an English nursery rhyme, the earliest surviving version of which dates from 1731. The words have not changed very much in two-and-a-half centuries. It is sung to a variant of the 1761 French melody Ah! vous dirai-je, maman. Uncorroborated theories have been advanced to explain the meaning of the rhyme, such as that it is a complaint against taxes levied on the Medieval English wool trade. In the twentieth century it was a subject of controversies in debates about political correctness. It has been used in literature and popular culture as a metaphor and allusion.
context_section_description: Recent versions tend to take the following form:
  Baa, baa, black sheep,
  
  Have you any wool?
  
  Yes, sir, yes, sir,
  
  Three bags full;
  
  One for the master,
  
  And one for the dame,
  
  And one for the little boy
  
  Who lives down the lane.
  The rhyme is a single stanza in trochaic metre, which is common in nursery rhymes and relatively easy for younger children to master. The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies the song as 4439 and variations have been collected across Great Britain and North America.
caption: The rhyme as illustrated by Dorothy M. Wheeler
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