Eeper Weeper

= Eeper Weeper =

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"Eeper Weeper" or "Heeper Peeper" is a popular English nursery rhyme and skipping song that tells the story of a chimney sweep who kills his second wife and hides her body up a chimney. The rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13497.[1]

'''Lyrics '''
 * Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper,
 * Had a wife but couldn't keep her.
 * Had another, didn't love her,
 * Up the chimney he did shove her.[2]

'''Origins '''Iona and Peter Opie noted that the rhyme had been used in this form from at least the first decade of the twentieth century.[2] A verse collected from Aberdeen, Scotland and published in 1868 had the words:
 * Peter, my neeper,
 * Had a wife,
 * And he couidna' keep her,
 * He pat her i' the wa',
 * And lat a' the mice eat her.

This may be an older version of "Eeper Neeper" and of "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater".[3]'''Notes '''
 * 1) I. Opie and P. Opie, Children's games with things: marbles, fivestones, throwing and catching, gambling, hopscotch, chucking and pitching, ball-bouncing, skipping, tops and tipcat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 180.
 * 2) I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.
 * 1) I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.