| "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | 1605 |
| Songwriter(s) | unknown |
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" is a proverb and nursery rhyme, first recorded about 1628 in a collection of Scottish proverbs, [1] which suggests if wishing could make things happen, then even the most destitute people would have everything they wanted. [2] It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20004.
Common newer versions include:
And also:
A shorter variant:
A variant intended to be humorous:
The first recognizable ancestor of the rhyme was recorded in William Camden's (1551–1623) Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, printed in 1605, which contained the lines: "If wishes were thrushes beggars would eat birds". [4] The reference to horses was first in James Carmichael's Proverbs in Scots printed in 1628, which included the lines: "And wishes were horses, pure [poor] men wald ride". [4] The first mention of beggars is in John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs in 1670, in the form "If wishes would bide, beggars would ride". [4] The first versions with close to today's wording was in James Kelly's Scottish Proverbs, Collected and Arranged in 1721, with the wording "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride". [4] The rhyme above was probably the combination of two of many versions and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s. [3] The last line was sometimes used to stop children from questioning and get to work: "If if's and and's were pots and pans, there'd surely be dishes to do."
Phill Jubb used this as the title of his 1996 progressive house record.
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