Goosey goosey gander, Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs And in my lady's chamber. There I met an old man Who wouldn't say his prayers, So I took him by his left leg And threw him down the stairs.[1]
The earliest recorded version of this rhyme is in Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus published in London in 1784. Like most early versions of the rhyme it does not include the last four lines:
Goose-a goose-a gander, Where shall I wander? Up stairs and down stairs, In my lady's chamber; There you'll find a cup of sack And a race of ginger.[1]
Some versions have the additional concluding lines:
The stairs went crack, He nearly broke his back. And all the little ducks went, 'Quack, quack, quack'.[2]
Iona and Peter Opie note records of a separate rhyme referring to the Crane fly recorded from about 1780, which they suggest may have been amalgamated with this rhyme in the early nineteenth century:
Old father Long-Legs Can't say his prayers: take him by the left leg, And throw him downstairs.[1]
Interpretations
The concealed entrance to a priest hole in Partingdale House, Middlesex (in the right pilaster)
Some have suggested[according to whom?] that this rhyme refers to priest holes—hiding places for itinerant Catholic priests during the persecutions under King Henry VIII, his children Edward, Queen Elizabeth and, later, under Oliver Cromwell. Once discovered the priest would be forcibly taken from the house ('thrown down the stairs') and treated badly.[3] Amateur historian Chris Roberts suggests further that the rhyme is linked to the propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church during the reign of Henry VIII.[4] "left leg" was a slang term for Catholics during the reign of Edward VI.[4] "Can't say his prayers" could refer to the banning of Latin prayers and the mandate to use the English-language Book of Common Prayer.[4][5]
Other interpretations exist. Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey note in Birds Britannica that the greylag goose has for millennia been associated with fertility, that "goose" still has a sexual meaning in British culture, and that the nursery rhyme preserves these sexual overtones ("In my lady's chamber").[6] "Goose" was a British term for prostitutes, and "bitten by a goose" was a reference to visible symptoms of STIs; Chris Roberts thus argues that the "wandering" refers to the spread of STIs.[4]
Notes
1 2 3 I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 191–2.
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from late eighteenth-century England and the tune from 1870 in James William Elliott's National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs. Its origins are obscure, and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings.
The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. This, however, was dependent on a Christmas pantomime, a successor to which is still performed in the United Kingdom.
"Ladybird, Ladybird" is the first line of an English-language nursery rhyme that also has German analogues. It is included in the Roud Folk Song Index as number of 16215.
"Hey Diddle Diddle" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19478.
"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" is an English nursery rhyme. The rhyme has been seen as having religious and historical significance, but its origins and meaning are disputed. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19626.
"Rub-A-Dub-Dub" is an English language nursery rhyme first published at the end of the 18th century in volume two of Hook's Christmas Box under the title "Dub a dub dub" rather than "Rub a dub dub". It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3101.
"Jack Sprat" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19479.
"Ring a Ring o' Roses", "Ring a Ring o' Rosie", or "Ring Around the Rosie", is a nursery rhyme, folk song and playground singing game. Descriptions first emerge in the mid-19th century, but are reported as dating from decades before, and similar rhymes are known from across Europe. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925.
"Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" is an English nursery rhyme, the earliest printed version of which dates from around 1744. The words have not changed very much in two and a half centuries. It is sung to a variant of the 18th century French melody Ah! vous dirai-je, maman.
A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied in some cultures more than others, they appear to be universal in human society.
"As I was going by Charing Cross", is an English language nursery rhyme. The rhyme was first recorded in the 1840s, but it may have older origins in street cries and verse of the seventeenth century. It refers to the equestrian statue of King Charles I in Charing Cross, London, and may allude to his death or be a puritan satire on royalist reactions to his execution. It was not recorded in its modern form until the mid-nineteenth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20564.
"Ding Dong Bell" or "Ding Dong Dell" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12853.
"There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme, with a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19132. Debates over its meaning and origin have largely centered on attempts to match the old woman with historical female figures who have had large families, although King George II (1683–1760) has also been proposed as the rhyme's subject.
"This Is the House That Jack Built" is a popular English nursery rhyme and cumulative tale. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20854. It is Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index type 2035.
"Cock a Doodle Doo" is an English language nursery rhyme.
"Taffy was a Welshman" is an English language nursery rhyme which was popular between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19237.
Mister Whiskers: My Favourite Nursery Rhymes is the 1998 re-release children's album of My Favourite Nursery Rhymes by Franciscus Henri, both under Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Music's ABC for Kids. It achieved Gold sales certification due to sales in excess of 35,000 units in Australia. Notably, the album contains 23 separate tracks, but 17 of these are medleys ranging between two and four rhymes each, totalling fifty-five for the album, though many only go through a single chorus. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1994 the original version received a nomination for Best Children's Album.
"Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross" is an English language nursery rhyme connected with the English town Banbury in Oxfordshire. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 21143.
Gammer Gurton's Garland: or, The Nursery Parnassus, edited by the literary antiquary Joseph Ritson, is one of the earliest collections of English nursery rhymes. It was first published as a chapbook in 1784, but was three times reprinted in expanded editions during the following century, as were several unrelated children's books with similar titles. Gammer Gurton's Garland put into print for the first time some of our best-known nursery rhymes.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
