DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Limerick : This form of verse — short, humorous, often nonsensical, and frequently bawdy — has existed since 1820, but became, and has remained, widely popular after the appearance of Edward Lear’s The Book of Nonsense (1846). Its name may come from the city of Limerick, Ireland, where it was the custom at parties to compose and sing nonsensical verses on the spur of the moment. A limerick consists of five lines; the first two and the fifth of which rhyme, as do the third and fourth, which are also shorter.

The first deliberate creation to match limerick form is usually considered Tom o’ Bedlam (c. 1600):

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend thee

And the spirit that stands
by the naked man,

In the book of the moons defend yee.

And here’s another example:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.