"Monday's Child" is one of many fortune-telling songs, popular as

nursery rhymes A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

for children. It is supposed to tell a child's character or future from their day of birth and to help young children remember the seven days of the week. As with many nursery rhymes, there are many versions. It has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the Londo ...

number of 19526.

Lyrics

The following is a common modern version: :Monday's child is fair of face, :Tuesday's child is full of grace. :Wednesday's child is full of woe, :Thursday's child has far to go. :Friday's child is loving and giving, :Saturday's child works hard for a living. :And the child born on the Sabbath day :Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.Iona Opie and Peter Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd ed., 1997), pp. 364-5.

Origins

This rhyme was first recorded in A. E. Bray's ''Traditions of Devonshire'' (Volume II, pp. 287–288) in 1838 and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-19th century. The tradition of fortune telling by days of birth is much older.

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel ''The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including ''Pierce Penniless,'' ...

recalled stories told to children in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

in the 1570s which included "what luck eurie 'every''one should have by the day of the weeke he was borne on". There was considerable variation and debate about the exact attributes of each day and even over the days. Halliwell had 'Christmas Day' instead of the Sabbath. Unlike modern versions in which "Wednesday's child is full of woe", an early incarnation of this rhyme appeared in a multi-part fictional story in a chapter appearing in ''

Harper's Weekly ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...

'' on September 17, 1887, in which "Friday's child is full of woe", perhaps reflecting traditional superstitions associated with bad luck on Friday – as many Christians associated Friday with the Crucifixion. The fates of Thursday's and Saturday's children were also exchanged and Sunday's child is "happy and wise" instead of "blithe and good".

Music

The rhyme was set by

John Rutter John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Biography Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutte ...

for choir

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

in the collection '' Five Childhood Lyrics'', first published in 1974.A performance on YouTube
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Literature

In '' Mary Poppins Comes Back'', a few lines of the nursery rhyme are briefly mentioned. Cartoonist

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams ...

named

Wednesday Addams Wednesday Addams is a fictional character from the Addams Family multimedia franchise created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. She is typically portrayed as a morbid and emotionally reserved child that is fascinated by the macabre, often ...

of his

Addams Family ''The Addams Family'' is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 unrelated single-panel cartoons, about half of which were originally published in ''The New Yorker'' over a ...

after this rhyme. The line "Wednesday's Child Is Full of Woe" is the title of the first episode of the 2022 TV series ''

Wednesday Wednesday is the day of the week between Tuesday and Thursday. According to international standard ISO 8601, it is the third day of the week. In countries which have Friday as their holiday, Wednesday is the fifth day of the week. In countrie ...

'' based on the character, which also quotes the rhyme in the episode.

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, ...

's novel ''

The Testaments ''The Testaments'' is a 2019 novel by Margaret Atwood. It is the sequel to ''The Handmaid's Tale'' (1985). The novel is set 15 years after the events of ''The Handmaid's Tale''. It is narrated by Aunt Lydia, a character from the previous novel; A ...

'' mentions the Wednesday and Thursday lines as part of a rhyme one of the narrators had heard from her mother as a child. In

Catherine Storr Catherine Storr, Baroness Balogh (born Catherine Cole; 21 July 1913 – 8 January 2001,Eccleshare (2005) gives the date of her death as 8 January; Eccleshare (2001) and Thwaite (2001) give it as 6 January.) was an English children's writer, best ...

's ''Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf'' (1955), Polly and the wolf have an argument about how the rhyme ought to go. Wolf's version is about how tasty children are, or how you should eat them. In

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

's novel '' Ulysses'', brothel worker Zoe Higgins quotes the line about Thursday's child to Stephen Dedalus upon learning he was born on a Thursday, the same weekday the novel is set on.

References

External links