"Bye, Baby Bunting" (Roud 11018) is an English nursery rhyme and lullaby.
Words and melodies In one version:
Bye, baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting, Gone to get a rabbit skin To wrap the baby Bunting in.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 63.Kaye Bennett Dotson (2020). The Value of Games, p.66. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. .
A number of variants exist, including "To get a little rabbit's skin" in line 3.Rackham, Arthur (1913). Mother Goose: The Old Nursery Rhymes, p.4. Century Company.
From 1784:Pamela Conn Beall, Susan Hagen Nipp (2002). Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies, p.50. Penguin Publishing Group. .
Origins The expression bunting is the name of a group of species of British birds; it is also a term of endearment that may also imply 'plump'. A version of the rhyme was published in 1731 in England. A version in Songs for the Nursery 1805 had the longer lyrics:
Bye, baby Bunting, Father's gone a-hunting, Mother's gone a-milking, Sister's gone a-silking, Brother's gone to buy a skin To wrap the baby Bunting in.Eulalie Osgood Grover, ed. (1915). Mother Goose. P.F. Volland. .(1899). The Child Life Quarterly Volumes 1-2, p.94. C.F. Hodgson & Son
See also Little Baby Buntin', a 1987 album Dinogad's Smock
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