Wee Willie Winkie

"Wee Willie Winkie" is a Scottish nursery rhyme. The main character in the rhyme is well-known as a personification of sleep. The poem was written by William Miller and titled "Willie Winkie", first published in Whistle-binkie: Stories for the Fireside in 1841. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13711.

 Lyrics 
The original text of 1841 in Scots, and a paraphrased version for English-language readers (from 1844) are below:

 Origins and meaning 
The poem was written by William Miller (1810–1872), first printed in Whistle-binkie: Stories for the Fireside in 1841 and re-printed in Whistle-Binkie; a Collection of Songs for the Social Circle published in 1873. In Jacobite songs Willie Winkie referred to King William III of England, one example being "The Last Will and Testament of Willie winkie" but it seems likely that Miller was simply using the name rather than writing a Jacobite satire.

Such was the popularity of Wee Willie Winkie that the character has become one of several bedtime entities such as the Sandman, Ole Lukøje of Scandinavia, Klaas Vaak of the Netherlands, Dormette of FranceC. Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes, and Goblins: an Encyclopedia of the Little People (ABC-CLIO, 1996), p. 231. and Billy Winker in Lancashire.Briggs, Katharine (1976). An Encyclopedia of Fairies. Pantheon Books. pp. 24, 429. .

Notes

Other websites
Scottish Nursery Songs and other Poems by William Miller  at Dennistoun online, includes Wee Willie Winkie
Whistle-Binkie; a Collection of Songs for the Social Circle edited by John Donald Carrick, Alexander Rodger, David Robertson, contains Willie Winkie and the autograph of Miller (1873)

Category:19th-century British poems
Category:Scots language
Category:1840s poems