One legend suggests that this nursery rhyme originated in the once prosperous wool merchant’s village of Lavenham, about 70 miles northeast of London, having been inspired by its multicolored half-timbered houses leaning at irregular angles as if they are supporting each other. It gained popularity in the early twentieth century. The rhyme was first recorded in print by James Orchard Halliwell in 1842: There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, And they all liv'd together in a little crooked house.
