Five Little Ducklings is NOT a nursery rhyme -- what REALLY lies over the hill and far away

it's a heckin true crime doc!!! or should I say true crime...duck

Five little ducklings. A staple of childhoods from Maine to Madrid to Machu Picchu, the joyful nursery rhyme is a classic. There’s counting, there’s ducks, what the heck more do you need? 

Right? RIGHT? 

Wrong. 

Five little ducklings, a ‘nursery’ rhyme, should not be allowed within 100 yards of a nursery, let alone a human child. It’s a dark and torrid tale that would make M. Night Shamalan go, “Whoa”. 

It started with bath time 

The squishy marshmallow of a book with its high-gloss, waterproof pages beckoned me like a siren’s call. Read this to your toddler, it said, it’s a perfect bath time activity, it said. 

“Ducks?” I asked my son, not even two at the time. 

“Cars!” he screamed back, which meant ‘yes’, so I opened it up and began, unaware of the horrors that awaited us both. 

Five little ducks

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

So far, so good. I’m excited, intrigued, and genuinely unsure what will happen next. 

Mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack, quack"

But only four little ducks came back.

WHAT THE FUCK A DUCK HAS GONE MISSING??  

We don't know much about the community here besides some hills and a great beyond 'far away', but this feels really bad. 

I have so many questions.

1. Where was Mama Duck (MD) when she made her quacks — at home or with the five little ducks?

   1. And does she have an alibi of any sort to back up her claims?

2. What’s the distance from where the five little ducks began (point A) to the “far away” place that’s “over the hills” (Point B)?? 

And, god, the most obvious clue hiding in plain sight.

3. Why did MD only quack four times and not five? 

Could MD…be in on it? No. That's…no. Why would – come on. No. 

And on what, exactly? All we know is four ducklings came back; we don’t know for sure that anyone is dead, right? Still, those poor four little ducklings. If the fifth is – god forbid – dead, those four will be saddled with a life of survivor’s guilt.

As a concerned citizen, father, and  lover of all animal life, I do think we need to ask the four ducks a few things. Sit em down in one of those rooms with no windows, offer them some small amphibians, and start asking questions that need answering.

What happened? When did they last see the fifth duckling? Had the fifth duckling been acting…strange lately? Not like himself or herself? In fact what fucking gender was this duck?? 

Were they hanging around with other ducks or, perish the thought, geese? 

And why am I the only one asking these questions? Surely there's a ducktective on the case? I sure fucking hope so. In fact, I know so. It’s me – Quack Jack, Duckdective, PDI. 

A photo of me trying to blow off some steam at a local video game store

On the edge of my seat, I turn the page and brace myself and my son for what's next.

Four little ducks

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

What in the True Ducktective twisted hell is this? Mother duck cannot, in good conscience, allow these four ducks back out to the same exact fucking spot where one of their their own was…kidnapped? Killed? Abduckted???

Ok. Let's give MD the B of the D for a second. The likely loss of a child is a trauma, so MD is likely mentally gone, grieving the loss of one of her own, unsure of what is real and what is fake. 

OR perhaps one of the four remaining ducks said "we need to go back there" and MD said 'no' but early the next morning, with MD still snoozing away after staying up all night eating stale bread, the ducks head out. 

MD wakes up and…well, let's take a look:

Mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack, quack."

But only three little ducks came back.

FOUR QUACKS???? what fresh hell?

No. I mean, come on. It can’t be, right? But it is.

ANOTHER DUCK HAS GONE MISSING?

I look at my sweet son, innocent and free, no longer able to pay attention, calming himself by putting his cars under the tub’s water spout, cleansing the automotive replicas and himself from the sins of this world.

This is spooky. Haunted and deranged, a car-crash-true-crime documentary you can’t look away from — rubber necking, they call it. Rubber necking, just like the rubber ducks of cultural significance. I make a big note on the whiteboard, if only to distract myself from the thought of mother duck sending her children, one by one, to pasture.  

I get up and walk out of the bathroom, muttering “no no no no no no,” until I hear my son say, “Dada. SIT DOWN!”

God damn it he’s right. I do need to sit down. And so I do. 

Here's where I'm at: is MD the victim? Or the mastermind? We don't know, which, itself IS a clue, no?

I take a closer look at the text itself and find a tone of almost sociopathic detachment. Who wrote this shit, Edgar Allen Poe?

A quick google reveals it was not Poe. In fact, there is no known author. All I learn is that the song is associated with something called “finger play”, Raffi, and Denise Fleming.

I make another note on the whiteboard.

The subtext, or lack of text, in Five Little Ducklings is the point. It asks us, nay, it pleads with us, to read between the lines. And so we shall. 

The mathematician in me decides to use his deducktive reasoning. 

• Five ducks. Four quacks. Four came back.

• Four ducks. Four quacks. Three came back. 

• Three ducks…how many quacks? HOW MANY COME BACK? 

A pattern, I’ve learned in Pattern School, is made after three items. Two’s a coincidence, three’s a crowd, and – ah shut up, Alex – two ducks are dead, enough horsing around. 

Horsing…around. Horses? I make a note on a giant legal pad: “horses?”

As a ducktective, I would have obviously demanded a perimeter be set up around the duck's home to ensure no ducks are let out but lord knows this town has a problem with ducks. Why else would the only place they're able to play be 'over the hill and far away'??? This thing reeks worse than goose doo doo. Play the next verse. 

Three little ducks

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

GOD DAMN IT NO. WHY THE HELL ARE THESE DUCKS DOING THIS?? 

The case hinges on what comes next: how many quacks will mother duck say? 

Mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack, quack."

But only two little ducks came back.

Are the quacks a red herring? Meant to confuse us? 

Why haven't the ducks said anything? Or, if they have, why is it not being shared with the public record by way of this nursery rhyme? 

WHERE IS OVER THE HILL AND FAR AWAY. 

Wait. 

A quack in the case

Over the hill is when you're old. 

Far away is when you're…dead.

I take a hankie out of my pocket and wipe my brow, sweat dribbling off my forehead like I’m at a sauna convention.

Is the story about these little ducks all going to the great beyond? And, each time having to make a single sacrifice in exchange for safe passage back to the real world for all but one dead duck? A sort of existential duck duck goose that, when you really think about it, all of us are playing every single day?

More questions now than ever. I steel myself for whatever comes next, though deep down, I already know, as all great ducktectives do, what fate awaits the remaining ducks. 

Two little ducks

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

The definition of tragedy, I learned in Tragedy School, is the terrible fate you cannot stop even though you know it’s coming. And nowhere, nohow, nowhen is this more true than now. I need not read the next lines to know what comes next. Four quacks followed by – I can't bring myself to even type it out. 

Mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack, quack."

But only one little duck came back.

One little duck. 

Duck damn it. 

Remember where we started. Five ducks. A quintet. A veritable boy band called Duck Outta Water (they were planning on releasing their first single, I Want It Quack Way followed by a dance bop Bye Bye Bye (Migration), and rounding out the year with Quackstreet's Back even though they refused to be called Quackstreet idk there was so much juicy gossip and politics there it woulda made for such a great boy band but now what the hell is Donald supposed to do? A solo career pivot? PIVOT FROM WHAT? 

There is no JT without NSync. 

Two verses left…

One little duck

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

Mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack, quack."

But none of the five little ducks came back.

Four quacks. Zero ducks returned. 

The Mother Duck is alone now, without any of her children. Why on god's blue water would MD let that one duck go back, alone? Why?? 

It all feels too easy, don't it? 

I keep working on the case. Days pass that feel like long days. I brew coffee pot after coffee pot trying to drown my sorrows in the percolator’s poison.

Finally, a last verse to the mystery emerges:

Sad mother duck

Went out one day

Over the hills and far away

Ok wow so MD is finally sad?? Grief takes a lifetime, lord knows, and perhaps she was in the denial stage, so honestly I’m happy she’s finally feeling something, but still. Fishy, it smells.

For the first time after oh let's see here, FIVE of her kids go missing, she decides to take a lil stroll over the hill and far away to see what the heck is happening over there. 

I'm being mean, because I am angry. I couldn't help her and she couldn't help her kids. Many who saw her walking to the land far away say they saw a resigned peace to her, even a smile. A letting go. A freedom from it all, when one feels that one has done all they can and is now ready to  sleep that forever slumber in the water (heaven for ducks, hell is land). 

The sad mother duck said

"Quack, quack, quack."

And all of the five little ducks came back.

THEY ALL CAME BACK??? 

They came back.

Take a moment to collect yourself, hug your family, call your bank. You will forever remember this exact moment — where you were when you learned that all five fucking ducks came back.

And yet…the case is not solved. The ‘finger play’ children’s song ends, abruptly, hoping a quick and clean happy ending is all we need.

I look at my whiteboard:

Three theories, related not at all to the above, start to materialize.

1. Insurance fraud?

2. Daddy duckcare? Where is the daddy duck? Conspicuously missing from the narrative… Perhaps that deadbeat duck of a dad lives over the hill and far away and the kids were going to hang with him? Duck damn it I don’t know.

3. THREE QUACKS??? Not four. Three. A change in the pattern. A lead. A ducktale, ooh wah ooh. 

I’ll chase these leads the rest of my days living even though deep down in my duck-druthers I know the truth. 

The truth, if you can even quack it that, is that there are no answers, not really. We anthropomorphize these animals, giving them feelings and long-term memory so we may play out our own unknowable lives upon their stage.

Ducks don't understand justice. They are unaware, and blissfully so — for what is bliss if not freedom from knowing there’s nothing but this, now.

As humans we need justice in our narratives, for seeing it there makes it real, or at least something to aspire to, to believe in, to hope for. 

But it’s not just justice (yesss) we seek.

It’s mercy too. Mercy and forgiveness for our trespasses to the far away places that all of us can and will and frankly must go. 

For all of the story’s Abduckted in Plain Sight vibes, it ends on a positive note. All five ducklings return. They came back, as we all do, sometimes,  to ourselves, to our mamas, with no explanation, no nursery rhyme nor nursery reason, just the faint hum of a duck going

Quack quack quack……..quack.

Obviously I gave up everything to work on this case. If you want to support the work and fund more cases — become a paid subscriber today.

Comments/Theories

1. What is MD’s deal? tell me ur theories plz

2. What other nursery rhymes are actually murder mysteries/horrifyingly bleak tales of suffering and doom and spook?

4. Did anyone read Five Little Ducklings to you when you were a wee duckling?

5. I honestly don’t have anymore questions I am too distraught