Pease Pudding

[oldtemps]

Why nine days old in the children's rhyme? Wouldn't it have gone off?

[Marsh]

Iona and Peter Opie are (were?) probably the authorities in this field.  Their Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) draws attention to the repeated "nine days old" but can't explain it.  It quotes a similar rhyme about mince-pies and leaves it at that.

[Bert]

I think to ask for logic in children's nursery rhymes is pointless.  You may as well ask how did the black sheep reply to the question "Have you any wool?" when we all know that sheep cannot talk.

[Marsh]

You may not get proper logic but many have references to actual events not generally remembered.  The division of the bags in Baa Baa Black Sheep, for example, was said in the wool trade to refer to the export tax on wool imposed in 1275.