Rub-A-Dub-Dub
Rub-A-Dub-Dub
Nursery Rhyme
Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker,
They all jumped out of a rotten potato!
Turn 'em out knaves all three.
A variation of this rhyme is...
Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men in a tub,
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker,
They all jumped out of a rotten potato!
T'was enough to make a man stare.
Notes
A History of Nursery Rhymes (1899) by Percy B. Green has the first line as "Hub-a-dub dub".
Here's the version from The Little Mother Goose (1912), illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith:
Hub a Dub, Dub
Hub a dub, dub,
Three men in a tub;
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker;
All jumped out of an Irish potato.
Below is the version in the mp3:
Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think was there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker,
And all of them gone to the Fair.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
The illustration can be found in The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes (circa 1920) edited by Walter Jerrold (1865 - 1929) and illustrated by Charles Robinson (with some graphical editing of the image above by Lisa Yannucci).
Thanks so much!