Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There and in a nursery rhyme by an anonymous author. The names originally came from a John Byrom poem.

Anonymous nursery rhyme

Starting in the early nineteenth century, collections of nursery rhymes began to include:

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:Tweedledum and Tweedledee

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:    Agreed to have a battle;

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:For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

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:    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

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:Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

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:    As black as a tar-barrel;

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:Which frightened both the heroes so,

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:    They quite forgot their quarrel.

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The editors of The Annotated Mother Goose quote Martin Gardner, editor of The Annotated Alice as saying "No one knows whether the nursery rhyme... had reference to famous musical battle, or whether it was an older rhyme from which Byrom borrowed in the last line of his doggerel."

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