Jack and Jill The Classic Hill-and-Tumble Rhyme, With Lyrics and a Free Printable

🎵 Jack and Jill Lyrics

These are the two verses everyone knows. Many printings run them together as one four-line verse; they are shown as two short verses here, the way they are usually sung to small children.

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

The Traditional Continuation

Up Jack got, and home did trot,
As fast as he could caper;

To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob
With vinegar and brown paper.

🪣 About This Rhyme

“Broke his crown” simply means Jack bumped the crown of his head — the top of it. His cure belongs to the rhyme's own time: vinegar and brown paper really was a household remedy for bumps and bruises in the 1700s and 1800s, soaked and pressed on like a cold cloth. Today a bumped head gets a cuddle, something cold, and a grown-up keeping an eye on it — but in the rhyme, Dame Dob's patch is the sign that Jack is fine and the story ends well.

Nobody knows for sure where this story came from, and the many theories about kings and taxes are just that — theories. What is solid is its age: it was already in print by about 1765, and children have been climbing that hill, on the page and in the playground, ever since. The tumbling is the fun of it — as long as real-life tumbles stay pretend, onto something soft.

🖨️ How to Use This Rhyme

1. Sing it together. Point up on “up the hill” and let your voice tumble down on the fall — the drop in the tune is the part toddlers wait for.
2. Act it out — gently. Climb a pretend hill across the room, then do a slow, pretend tumble onto cushions or a rug. Pretend tumbles only: the rhyme's fall is fun, a real one is not.
3. Print the lyrics sheet. Prop it where you sing, or add it to a nursery rhyme folder so your child can find Jack and Jill's page themselves.
4. Let your child “read” it back. Children memorize this one fast. Let them hold the sheet and perform both parts — climbing voice, tumbling voice and all.