Perhaps the dish and spoon running away is us, distracted by the game, missing our chance to eat our grub before the plate is carried away again. And as well as the cat and fiddle, the rhyme mentions “sport”. Famous nursery rhymes can sometimes be traced back to traditional dances or musical games, so it’s a plausible theory that that’s what ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ is all about. An old game involving a trap-ball called a ‘cat’ used to be played at pubs, with accompanying music from the fiddle – which explains why it became a pub name at all. One credible theory, though, could be linked to those Cat and Fiddle pubs.
So the above scholarly conclusion that it’s not really meant to make sense seems sensible to us. Maybe the dog is laughing and light-headed after too many ales? And how a dish can even run, we’re not sure. The Cat and Fiddle is a common name for inns in England, and the cow jumping over the moon could be a metaphor for… well, it’s not too clear.
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