Another riddle rhyme, this one describing Little Nanny Etticoat in her white petticoat and red nose, who grows shorter the longer she stands. The answer, a lit candle, is a small delight to work out together.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Little Nanny Etticoat
In a white petticoat,
And a red nose;
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows.
About this rhyme
Traditional riddle rhyme; the answer is a candle (petticoat = wax, red nose = flame, shrinks as it burns). · Printed under this title in English nursery-rhyme collections from at least the 1840s; the underlying riddle is older, so 'since the 1800s' is safely defensible without overclaiming a precise first date.
This one's a riddle, and the title rather gives it away: a lit candle. The white petticoat is melting wax, the red nose the flame, and the joke is that the longer it stands, the shorter it grows. It's been printed as Little Nanny Etticoat in nursery rhyme books since the 1800s. Cover the title and let a child guess before you read the last line.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition