> Tim Hart and Friends > Songs > There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket

The Old Woman Tossed Up / There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket

[ Roud 1297 ; Master title: The Old Woman Tossed Up ; Ballad Index OO2544 ; GlosTrad Roud 1297 ; Wiltshire 650 ; trad.]

There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket is printed in Iona and Peter Opie: Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Oxford University Press, 1951.

William Kimber played the Morris tune The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket in 1963 on his eponymous EFDSS album William Kimber.

Barry Dransfield recited the nursery rhyme Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket on the 1972 album Morris On.

John Kirkpatrick played The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket in his arrangement of Morris tunes on his 1972 Trailer album Jump at the Sun.

Madeleine (Sandra Kerr) sang The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket in the twelfth episde of the animated children’s television series Bagpuss, The Fiddle, first broadcast on 30 Aptil 1974. A new recording of this was included on the albums Bagpuss: The Songs & Music (1998) and The Music From Bagpuss (2018).

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior sang There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket in 1981 on Tim Hart and Friends’ album My Very Favourite Nursery Rhyme Record. This track was later included on their compilation CD Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Other Children’s Songs.

Fiolla Benjamin sang There Was an Old Woman on the 1982 video 70 Golden Nursery Rhymes.

Faustus played the tune of Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket n 2003 on their Fellside album The First Cut.

Spiers & Boden played the tune of Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket n 2003 on their Fellside album Bellow.

Brass Monkey played the tune of The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket n 2009 on their Topic album Head of Steam.

Jess and Richard Arrowsmith sang Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket on their 2014 album of nursery songs, rhymes and lullabies, Off We Go Again!.

Lyrics

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior sing There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket

There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Ninety-nine times as high as the moon.
What she did there I could not but ask it
For in each hand she carried a broom.

“Old woman, old woman, old woman,” said I,
“Where are you going to up so high?”
“To sweep the cobwebs from the sky
And you may come with me if you can fly.”