Tom Piper

☞ Public‐domain character. Folkloric. First appearance in print, Tom, the Piper’s Son, ca. 1795, if not The Recruiting Officers, 1706.

Tom or Tom‐Tom, or sometimes Tom Piper, is a thieving English boy who is the son of a piper, although at times said to instead be the son of a baker or a preacher, and is best known for having stolen a pig but has also stolen other things, and who is himself a proficient piper, although his repertoire is said to be very limited. He has on occasion been called Tom Thumb but is clearly someone different than the earlier and better‐known Tom Thumb. His counterpart in the world of Mother Wild Goose is Jack Daw, a corvid that steals a mechanical pig.

16th and 17th centuries. By at least some point in the 16th century, the name “Tom Piper” had become associated with the pipers who accompanied Morris dancers (“Dissertation on the Ancient English Morris Dance” and others), and so the various uses of the name at that time would seem to be unrelated to the 18th‐century pig thief. Among these is a reference to “Will Piper” in a 1593 eclogue from Idea that was revised (in 1606?) to read “Tom Piper.”

In 1611, a commendatory poem in the book Coryats Crudities compares renowned traveler Thomas Coryat to others named Tom, including a Tom Piper about whom the narration preserves only a fragment of biographical information: “Tom Piper is gone out, and mirth bewailes/He neuer will come in to tell vs tales.” Although it is possible that this refers to the same 18th‐century Tom Piper of nursery‐rhyme and chapbook fame, it instead may be that the text is suggesting that this 17th‐century Tom Piper may have died in the course of his only known adventure (“Incipit Iacobus Field”). The 1894 edition of Dictionary of Phrase and Fable extrapolates on the idea of telling tales and claims Tom is a storyteller comparable to the most eminent storyteller of all: “There is apparently another Tom Piper … of whom nothing is now known. He seems to have been a sort of Mother Goose, or raconteur of short tales.”

Public‐domain bibliography

• • Idea: The Shepheards Garland, eclogue no. 3, 1593. (1856 reprint, HathiTrust)

    • Revision, 1606. (1795 reprint, HathiTrust)

  • “Incipit Iacobus Field” (commendatory poem), by James Field, Coryats Crudities: Hastily Gobled Up in Five Moneths Travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia Commonly Called the Grisons Country, Helvetia Aliàs Switzerland, Some Parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands: Newly Digested in the Hungry Aire of Odcombe in the County of Somerset, & Now Dispersed to the Nourishment of the Travelling Members of This Kingdome …: Now Distilled into English Spirit Through the Odcombian Limbecke; This Precedeth the Crudities …, 1611. (Internet Archive)

  • The Recruiting Officers, by George Farquhar, 1706. (2nd ed., Google Books) (4th ed., 1709, Google Books)

  • “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son” (nursery rhyme), Roud 19621, 1790s or earlier. (ODNR 510, p. 411)

    • Songs for the Nursery Collected from the Works of the Most Renowned Poets, 1805. (1808?, Internet Archive)

    • Gammer Gurton’s Garland: or, The Nursery Parnassus; A Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses, for the Amusement of All Little Good Children Who Can Neither Read nor Run, part 3, collected by Joseph Ritson, 1810. Named Tom Thumb. (HathiTrust)

    • Mother Goose’s Melodies: The Only Pure Edition; Containing All That Have Ever Come to Light of Her Memorable Writings, Together with Those Which Have Been Discovered Among the Mss. of Herculaneum, Likewise Every One Recently Found in the Same Stone Box Which Hold the Golden Plates of the Book of Mormon; The Whole Compared, Revised, and Sanctioned, by One of the Annotators of the Goose Family …, [1833]. (Internet Archive)

    • The Nursery Rhymes of England, Collected Principally from Oral Tradition, collected by James Orchard Halliwell, 1842. (HathiTrust)

    • Mother Goose; or, National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs, music by James William Elliott, 1872. (HathiTrust)

  • Tom, the Piper’s Son (chapbook), first stanza of new verse based on “The Distracted Jockey’s Lamentations,” possibly by Peter Anthony Motteux, ca. 1795. (ODNR 508, p. 408)

    • Tom, the Piper’s Son, [182‒?]. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)

    • The chapbook text incorporated into Halliwell, 1842. (HathiTrust)

    • Tom the Piper’s Son, [between 1846 and 1859]. (Internet Archive)

    • Tom, the Piper’s Son, [between 1849 and 1868]. (Internet Archive)

  • “A Dissertation on the Ancient English Morris Dance,” Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners: with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare; on the Collection of Popular Tales entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris Dance, vol. 2, by Francis Douce, 1807. (HathiTrust)

  • Harlequin Tom, the Piper’s Son Stole a Pig and Away He Ran (pantomime), by John Larpent, 1820. (information, HathiTrust)

  • Adventures of Tom, the Piper’s Son, ca. 1830.

  • Harlequin Tom, the Piper’s Son (pantomime), 1830. (review, HathiTrust)

  • Tom, the Piper’s Son, [ca. 1835?]. (Internet Archive)

  • An Essay on the Archæology of Our Popular Phrases, and Nursery Rhymes, new ed., vol. 2, by John Bellenden Ker Gawler, 1840. Tom Thumb. (HathiTrust)

  • King Chess; or, Harlequin Tom the Piper’s Son and See Saw Margery Daw (pantomime), 1865. (review, HathiTrust)

  • Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son, Pope Joan and Little Bo‐peep; or, Old Daddy Longlegs and the Pig That Went to Market and the Pig That Stayed at Home (pantomime), 1865. (review, HathiTrust)

  • Harlequin Tom, the Piper’s Son, Who Stole a Pig and Away He Run; or, Goody Two Shoes and Her P’s and Q’s, by G. H. George, 1869.

  • Moonfolk: A True Account of the Home of the Fairy Tales, by Jane G. Austin, illustrated by W. J. Linton, 1874. (HathiTrust) (1882, Internet Archive)

  • “Directions for a Mother Goose Party,” by Geo. B. Bartlett, 1877. Reprinted in New Games for Parlor and Lawn with a Few Old Friends in a New Dress, 1882. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)

  • Reprinted in A Dream of Mother Goose and Other Entertainments, 1908. (HathiTrust)

  • “The Marriage of Santa Claus” (poem), The Reading Club and Handy Speaker: Being Serious, Humorous, Pathetic, Patriotic, and Dramatic Selections in Prose and Poetry, for Readings and Recitations, no. 9, ed. George Melville Baker, 1881. (HathiTrust) (Internet Archive)

  • Tom Tom the Piper’s Son! or, Harlequin Buffaloe [sic] Bill, and the Magic Jam Pot, by George Thorne (d. 1922) and F. Grove Palmer (d. ?), 1889. As F. Grove Palmer’s year of death is unknown, this work might not be reliably said to be in the public domain in the UK, its country of origin, until 2023. (HathiTrust)

  • Wanted—a King, by Maggie Browne (d. 1937), illustration by Harry Furniss (d. 1925), 1890. (Internet Archive)

  • “The Mother Goose Carnival,” by Mrs. John D. Thayer, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, Jan. 1892. (HathiTrust)

  • Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrases, Allusions, and Words That Have a Tale to Tell …, 1894 ed., by E. Cobham Brewer, 1894. (HathiTrust)

  • “In These Bicycle Days,” 16 Aug. 1896 or earlier. Lyra Cyclus or the Bards and the Bicycle: Being a Collection of Merry and Melodious Metrical Conceits Anent the Wheel, ed. Edmond Redmond, 1897.

  • “Tom, the Piper’s Son,” Mother Goose in Prose, by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, 1897. (Internet Archive)

• “The Inexcusable Improbity of Tom, the Piper’s Son,” Mother Goose for Grown‐Ups, by Guy Wetmore Carryl, illustrated by Peter Newell and Gustave Verbeek, 1900. (See note about earlier publications.) (Internet Archive)

• “Jack Daw, the magpie’s son,” Mother Wild Goose and Her Wild Beast Show, by L. J. Bridgman, 1900. (Internet Archive)

• Runaway Robinson, by Charles M. Snyder, illustrated by George R. Brill, 1901. (HathiTrust)

• “A Message to Mother Goose,” by Ellen Manly, illustrated by George Varian, St. Nicholas, vol. 32, no. 2, Dec. 1904. (Internet Archive)

• Boy Blue and His Friends, by Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell, illustrated by Maud Tousey, 1906. (Internet Archive)

  • Mrs. Goose: Her Book, by Maurice Switzer, 1906. (HathiTrust)

  • “Tom, the Piper’s Son,” A Book of Plays for Little Actors, by Emma L. Johnston and Madalene E. Barnum, illustrated by Sarah Noble Ives, 1907. Origin story. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)

  • “A Dream of Mother Goose,” by J. C. Marchant and S. J. Mayhew, A Dream of Mother Goose and Other Entertainments, 1908. (HathiTrust)

  • “Tom, Tom, Was a Piper’s Son,” Mother Goose and What Happened Next, by Anna Marion Smith, illustrated by Reginald Bathurst Birch, 1909. Likely a reprint. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)

  • “Tom Tom, the Preacher’s son,” The Bull Moose Mother Goose, by Sallie Macrum Cubbage, illustrated by Chauncey F. Cagney, 1912. (HathiTrust)

  • “Boys of Mother Goose Land” (play), by Stanley Schell, Boy Impersonations, Werner’s Readings and Recitations, no. 52, 1913. (HathiTrust)

  • Miss Muffet Lost and Found: A Mother Goose Play, by Katharine C. Baker, 1915. (HathiTrust)

  • The New Woman in Mother Goose Land: A Play for Children, by Edyth M. Wormwood, 1915. (Internet Archive)

  • The Modern Mother Goose: A Play in Three Acts, by Helen Hamilton, 1916. (Internet Archive)

  • “The Story Book Ball” (song), by George Perry, music by Billie Montgomery, cover illustration by William Austin Starmer (d. 1955) or Frederick Waite Starmer (d. 1962), 1917. (Johns Hopkins U.)

  • “Just like Tom, the piper’s son,” Mother Goose Comes to Portland, by Frederic W. Freeman, 1918. (Internet Archive)

  • The Campus Gander, The Siren, vol. 7, no. 8, May 1920. (HathiTrust)

  • “Tom Tom the Piper’s Son,” by John Martin (pseud. of Morgan van Roorbach Shepard), illustrated by H. L. Drucklieb, John Martin’s Book: The Child’s Magazine, vol. 23, no. 4, Apr. 1921. (HathiTrust)

  • The Children Who Followed the Piper, by Padraic Colum (d. 1972), illustrated by Dugald Stewart Walker (d. 1937), 1922. Appears to have been first published in the US. (Internet Archive)

• “Sing a Song of Sleepy Head: A Play for Grownups and Children,” Sing a Song of Sleepy Head: Being Readable Rhymes for Curious Children, by James W. Foley, 1922. (HathiTrust)

  • The Strike Mother Goose Settled, by Evelyn Hoxie, 1922. (Internet Archive)

  • The Real Personages of Mother Goose, by Katherine Elwes Thomas, 1930. (HathiTrust + 325)

— Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (movie), (Mar.) 1905. (IMD)

See also http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/OO2509.html + https://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/Arn017.html and https://www.vwml.org/roudnumber/19621