It's five and twenty ponies.

It was four and twenty virgins, but that's another song entirely.

We recorded a version on our 'Characters' CD - see our website Crane Drivin' Music

The tune we use is apparently common in Sussex folk clubs. We were told it was originally written by an East Anglian schoolteacher named Bates, to introduce Kipling to his class.

We took the rhythm for our version from the trotting of wild ponies over the moors of the Gower peninsula in South Wales, where we now live.

Andrew