The Farmer in The Dell - Origins and Dissemination

Origins and Dissemination

The rhyme is first recorded in Germany in 1826, as "Es fuhr ein Bau'r ins Holz," and was more clearly a courtship game with a farmer choosing a wife, then in turn the selecting of a child, maid, and serving man, who leaves the maid after kissing. This was probably taken to North America by German immigrants, where it next surfaced in New York in 1883 much in its modern form and using a melody similar to "A Hunting We Will Go". From here it seems to have been adopted throughout the United States, Canada (noted from 1893), the Netherlands (1894) and Great Britain; it is first found in Scotland in 1898 and England from 1909. In the early twentieth century it was evident as wide as France ("Le fermier dans son pré"), Sweden ("En bonde i vår by"), Australia, and South Africa.