Children's counting rhyme, but the term is often applied to all kinds of children's rhymes. Like other forms of popular song, these began to be seriously collected in the 19th c., though a rich anthology, La Fricassée crotestylonnée, was published in 1602. Many 20th-c. poets, in particular the Surrealists, have found pleasure and inspiration in these rhymes; Philippe Soupault used the radio to collect them from France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada. An accessible modern collection is
[Peter France]
