Round and Round the Garden

"Round and Round the Garden" is an English nursery rhyme and interactive fingerplay game that originated in Britain and was first recorded around the 1940s, making it one of the more recent additions to the traditional nursery rhyme repertoire compared to older folk songs that date back centuries. The rhyme is typically accompanied by actions where an adult traces circles on a child's palm with a finger to mimic walking around a garden, followed by walking the fingers up the child's arm, often ending with a gentle tickle under the arm or on the tummy—this interactive nature promotes tactile play and bonding between caregivers and infants. The common lyrics are "Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. One step, two steps, tickle you under there!" with the inclusion of "teddy bear" helping confirm its relatively recent origin, as the term "teddy bear" was coined in the 20th century. While the current form is modern, some experts such as Iona and Peter Opie have speculated that it might be a version of an older rhyme, with an older version collected between 1945 and 1949 being "Round about there, went a little hare." Variations exist in different regions, including an Irish version that mentions a "racecourse" and a "little hare," and a South African version that refers to a "mulberry bush." The rhyme is classified under Roud Folk Song Index number 19235.