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.
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is an English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early-19th-century English poem written by Jane Taylor, "The Star". The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is now sung to the tune of the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman", which was first published in 1761 and later arranged by several composers, including Mozart with Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman". The English lyrics have five stanzas, although only the first is widely known. The song is in the public domain.
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.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" – which can be spelled a number of ways – is a children's counting-out rhyme, used to select a person in games such as tag, or for selecting various other things. It is one of a large group of similar rhymes in which the child who is pointed to by the chanter on the last syllable is chosen. The rhyme has existed in various forms since well before 1820 and is common in many languages using similar-sounding nonsense syllables. Some versions use a racial epithet, which has made the rhyme controversial at times.
Coel, also called Coel Hen and King Cole, is a figure prominent in Welsh literature and legend since the Middle Ages. Early Welsh tradition knew of a Coel Hen, a c. 4th-century leader in Roman or Sub-Roman Britain and the progenitor of several kingly lines in Yr Hen Ogledd, a region of the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now northern England and southern Scotland.
"Hey Diddle Diddle" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19478.
"London Bridge Is Falling Down" is a traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game, which is found in different versions all over the world. It deals with the dilapidation of London Bridge and attempts, realistic or fanciful, to repair it. It may date back to bridge-related rhymes and games of the Late Middle Ages, but the earliest records of the rhyme in English are from the 17th century. The lyrics were first printed in close to their modern form in the mid-18th century and became popular, particularly in Britain and the United States, during the 19th century.
"The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" is J. R. R. Tolkien's imagined original song behind the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle ", invented by back-formation. It was first published in Yorkshire Poetry magazine in 1923, and was reused in extended form in the 1954–55 The Lord of the Rings as a song sung by Frodo Baggins in the Prancing Pony inn. The extended version was republished in the 1962 collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
"Little Jack Horner" is a popular English nursery rhyme with the Roud Folk Song Index number 13027. First mentioned in the 18th century, it was early associated with acts of opportunism, particularly in politics. Moralists also rewrote and expanded the poem so as to counter its celebration of greediness. The name of Jack Horner also came to be applied to a completely different and older poem on a folkloric theme; and in the 19th century, it was claimed that the rhyme was originally composed in satirical reference to the dishonest actions of Thomas Horner in the Tudor period.
"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, with various lyrics. 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 barely changed in two and a half centuries. It is sung to a variant of the 18th century French melody Ah! vous dirai-je, maman.
"Three Blind Mice" is an English nursery rhyme and musical round. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3753.
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.
Roberta Williams' Mixed-Up Mother Goose is a computer game first released by Sierra On-Line in 1987. It is, in essence, an edutainment title, directed specifically at young gamers, as well as an adventure game. It was the first multimedia game released on CD-ROM in 1991. A second game in the series, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, was released in 1991.
"Who Killed Cock Robin" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 494.
"Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19621.
"Round and round the garden" is an English language nursery rhyme typically accompanied by fingerplay. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19235.
"The Queen of Hearts" is an English poem and nursery rhyme based on the characters found on playing cards, by an anonymous author, originally published with three lesser-known stanzas, "The King of Spades", "The King of Clubs", and "The Diamond King", in the British publication The European Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4, in April 1782. However, Iona and Peter Opie have argued that there is evidence to suggest that these other stanzas were later additions to an older poem.
Old King Cole is a Disney cartoon in the Silly Symphonies series, based on several nursery rhymes and fairy tales, including Old King Cole. It was directed by David Hand and released on July 29, 1933.
"Arthur o' Bower" is a short British nursery rhyme or rhymed riddle originally published in 1805 but known, on the evidence of a letter by William Wordsworth, to have been current in the late 18th century in Cumberland. The title character is a personification of a storm wind, sometimes believed to represent King Arthur in his character as storm god or leader of the Wild Hunt. The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies this rhyme as 22839.
