Frog Went a-Courting
traditional song
"Frog Went a-Courtin'" (Roud No. 16), also known as "A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go", is an English-language folk song. Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn's Complaynt of Scotland (1549) under the name "The Frog cam to the Myl dur", though this is in Scots rather than English. There is a reference in the London Company of Stationers' Register of 1580 to "A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse". There are many texts of the ballad; however the oldest known musical version is found in Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata in 1611.
Summary
The lyrics involve a frog courting a mouse (Missie Mouse). The mouse is willing to marry the frog, but she must ask permission of Uncle Rat. In other versions such as "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" by Chubby Parker, the frog fights and kills Miss Mouse's other suitors (an owl, bat and bumblebee) after they interrupt his proposal. Uncle Rat's permission received, the two work out details of the wedding. Some versions end with a cat, snake or other creature devouring or chasing the couple and wedding guests.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frog Went a-Courting” as traditional song. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as traditional song. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5505223. VIAF identifies the subject as 176214801. The Library of Congress control number is n84160069. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1549, 1580 and 1611.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Frog Went a-Courting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.