A miniature, whimsical rhyme about a husband no bigger than a thumb, kept in a pint pot and fussed over with a tiny handkerchief and garters. The scale of everything is the whole joke.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
I had a little husband no bigger than my thumb,
I put him in a pint pot, and there I bid him drum,
I bought a little handkerchief to wipe his little nose,
And a pair of little garters to tie his little hose.
About this rhyme
Printed by James Orchard Halliwell in The Nursery Rhymes of England (2nd edition, 1843) as rhyme LXXVII, closely matching this text. · Halliwell's own note explicitly ties it to the Tom Thumb 'thumbling' story tradition, citing a Danish analogue about 'Swain Tomling'. The draft's framing is directly supported by the source, not invented.
A husband no bigger than my thumb, kept in a pint pot: this belongs to a whole family of old thumbling rhymes, the same tradition as Tom Thumb. It was written down by the folklorist James Halliwell in the 1840s, though it was very likely said long before that. Say the small details, thumb, pint pot, tiny nose, in a small, careful voice.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition