A missing horseshoe nail topples all the way to a lost kingdom, one small cause tipping into the next. It's one of the oldest cumulative rhymes in English and a neat early lesson in cause and effect.
Spoken. A domino rhyme, each line toppling into the next.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
About this rhyme
George Herbert printed a version in 1640
This is a proverb turned into a rhyme, and an old one. The idea behind it, a chain of small losses ending in one big one, goes a long way back. A version turns up in German verse around 1230. In English it was a common saying by the 1600s, and George Herbert printed one in 1640, ending at the lost rider. Benjamin Franklin gave it a longer run in his almanac in 1758. The fuller version we know now, the one that carries on to a lost battle and a lost kingdom, came later. Small neglected things add up to large disasters, and the rhyme makes the point without labouring it.
Read it as a story of cause and effect. It suits an older child who can follow one thing leading into the next. Pause at each 'was lost' and let them guess what goes wrong after. It fits a calm, thinking sort of moment rather than a giddy one.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition