Our pick of the greatest limericks

The limerick is a poetic form shrouded in mystery: nobody knows why they’re named after Limerick, who invented the form, or when they were first composed. What we do know is that they’ve been with us for a long time – the earliest limericks date back to the Middle Ages – and that, at their best, limericks can be very, very funny. They can also demonstrate a masterly control of verse form and admirable economy of language. In this post, we’ve gathered up a dozen of our favourite limericks, which are among the funniest limericks ever written and the finest examples of the form. Many of them are anonymous, but where the author of the limerick is known, we’ve added their name in brackets after the poem. Warning: some of these classic limericks are rather rude, to say the least.

The limerick packs laughs…