ID: 1123
Date: 1980s - 2004
Title: If the old woman
Gender: Male and Female 
Classification: Parody 
Rhyme: 

If the old woman who lived in a shoe,
Had lived in a cottage instead,
Her children could have played hide and seek,
And wouldn't have been sent to bed.

(Christchurch, 1980s)

--

There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe,
She fed all her children on glue stew.
But Mamma, they said,
This will not do,
We want blowflies in our stew.

(Runanga, 2004)

--

There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children, 
She didn't know what to do.
So she washed them and brushed them 
And told them good jokes.
They all grew up to be very good blokes.

(Wellington, 2002)

--
 
Background Info: Origins of this rhyme date back to 1797, with this version from Opie, 1992:435:

There was an old woman, and she liv'd in a shoe,
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She crumm'd 'em some porridge without any bread;
And she borrow'd a beetle,
And she knocked 'em all o' the head.
Then out went th' old woman to beespeak 'em a coffin,
And when she came back, she found 'em all a-loffeing.

==
 
Location: Various NZ 
Group size: 2 
Incidence: 3