"Little Bo-Peep" or "Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6487.
Words and melody
As with most products of oral tradition, there are many variations to the rhyme. One modern version of the first verse is:
thumb|Little Bo-Peep, by [[Walter Crane, ]]
Variants of the second line include "And can't tell where to find them", with the fourth line sometimes being given as "And bring their tails behind them".
Additional verses
thumb|[[William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for the rhyme, 1902]]
The rhyme continues: but there's no evidence that the rhyme existed earlier than the 18th century.
The phrase "to play bo peep" was in use from the 14th century to refer to the punishment of being stood in a pillory. For example, in 1364, an ale-wife, Alice Causton, was convicted of giving short measure, for which crime she had to "play bo peep thorowe a pillery". Andrew Boorde uses the same phrase in 1542, "". Nevertheless, connections with sheep are early; a fifteenth-century ballad includes the lines: " // In every corner they play boe-peep".