Star Light, Star Bright
"Star Light, Star Bright" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 16339.
| "Star Light, Star Bright" | |
|---|---|
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | Late 19th century |
Lyrics
The lyrics usually conform to the following:
- Star light, star bright,
- First star I see tonight;
- I wish I may, I wish I might
- Have the wish I wish tonight.[1]
Origins
The superstition of hoping for wishes granted when seeing a shooting or falling star may date back to the ancient world.[2] Wishing on the first star seen may also predate this rhyme, which first began to be recorded in late nineteenth-century America.[3] The song and tradition seem to have reached Britain by the early twentieth century and have since spread worldwide.[2]
Notes
- R. Gerlings, Hey, Diddle, Diddle and Other Best-Loved Rhymes (Windmill Books, 2009), p. 32.
- I. Opie and M. Tatem, A Dictionary of Superstitions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 175-6.
- R. Webster, The Encyclopedia of Superstitions (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2008), p. 245.
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