The Happy Wanderer, also known as a the Merry Wanderer started off life as a German song released before 1952, hence its yodelling chorus. Its first appearance in Britain was in an Wales concert. The singers in that concert even went on to sing in America on the infamous Ed Sullivan Show.

Since the topic of the song was wandering through the mountains and countryside it was is an old verse taken up by Scout and Guide troops about someone who sings while wandering through the mountains and countryside with their knapsack on their back. Ironically Baden Powell learnt most of his scouting techniques fighting the Germans in the First World War, but no matter.

It may be sung while moving or may be sung round a campfire. In the former case it is a song for light walking rather than the march of a soldier.

But what has this got to do with nursery rhymes? Well Scouts instead of using the correct words have been known to stick such rhymes in instead, but sticking to the tune of Happy Wanderer, despite the difficulty of singing one with a different tune. Although scouts don’t tend to sing risque songs, this format may lead to singing a more jocular version of the nursery rhyme. Of course not all of them fit, it has to go A A B B – and it needs to fit the scanning, Hickory Dickory Dock for instance doesn’t work.

All this goes to show how nursery rhymes change to fit different formats, in this case the Scouting movement and a German song.