Children's Nursery Rhymes

By Albert Jack

From the Author of the Internationally Bestselling Red Herrings & White Elephants, Pop Goes the Weasel, What Caesar did for My Salad, Shaggy Dogs, They Laughed at Galileo:

The historical significance of children’s rhymes is often lost on most adults, let alone the children who learn them by heart almost as soon as they learn to say anything at all.
For all of us, the first things we are taught, after learning how to talk, are nursery rhymes. Hence by the time we are adults, we will know the words to hundreds of them without ever being aware of their meaning or real importance.
And they are important, in my view, because many of them tell the true tale of some of history’s darkest or most tragic events.
Knowing the origins of a rhyme will help to preserve that piece of history, or the layers of history that accrue around a centuries-old rhyme.
It also provides a fascinating insight into how news of historical events was transmitted around the land long before the days of instant communication by telephone, radio, television or the internet.

For example, would you expect Humpty Dumpty to be the name of one of King Charles I’s cannons located on top of a church tower at the Siege of Colchester in 1648 during the English Civil War?
Operated by One-Eyed Thompson, a Royalist gunner, it successfully kept Cromwell’s forces at bay until the Parliamentarians managed to blow it off the tower, allowing them to take over the town.
An important battle was lost (or won, depending on your viewpoint) and a turning point in history then marked by a rhyme, soon repeated in every village and every hamlet as news of Cromwell’s victory spread throughout the land. 

Or would you imagine for a moment that the three blind mice could be the Oxford Martyrs Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, all burned at the stake for their faith, by the Farmer’s Wife, Mary I?
Or what about my personal favourite – the story of the steward to the Dean of Glastonbury, Thomas Horner, who was sent to see Henry VIII with a bowl full of property deeds disguised as a pie in an attempt to bribe the king?
On the way to London, Horner, it is said, reached into the pie and a stole a plum piece of real estate for himself at Mells Manor.

So sit back and enjoy our morbid history, as told, for generations, to our children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Albert Jack Publishing
• Release date: Sep 20, 2018

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About the Author

Albert Jack is a writer and historian. His first book, Red Herrings and White Elephants explored the origins of well-known idioms and phrases and became an international bestseller in 2004.

It was serialised by the Sunday Times and remained in their bestseller list for sixteen straight months. He followed this up with a series of bestsellers including Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep, Pop Goes the Weasel and What Caesar did for My Salad.

Fascinated by discovering the truth behind the world’s great stories, Albert has become an expert in explaining the unexplained, enriching millions of dinner table conversations and ending bar room disputes the world over.

He is now a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands of radio programmes worldwide. Albert lives somewhere between Guildford in England and Cape Town in South Africa.

OTHER BOOKS BY ALBERT JACK

RED HERRINGS AND WHITE ELEPHANTS

SHAGGY DOGS AND BLACK SHEEP

PHANTOM HITCHHIKERS

LOCH NESS MONSTERS AND OTHER MYSTERIES SOLVED

POP GOES THE WEASEL

THE OLD DOG AND DUCK

WHAT CAESAR DID FOR MY SALAD

ITS A WONDERFUL WORD

ALBERT JACK PART 1

ALBERT JACK PART 2

THE JAM: SOUNDS FROM THE STREET

WANT TO BE A WRITER? THEN DO IT PROPERLY

THE PRESIDEN'S BRAIN IS MISSING

NEW WORLD ORDER

9/11 CONSPIRACY'

THEY LAUGHED AT GALILEO

Introduction

I first had the idea of studying the history of nursery rhymes about ten years ago. But at the time, the idea of trawling through history to try and discover the origins of our favourite nursery rhymes and analyse their meanings, obvious or hidden, was one I didn’t relish at first, to be honest.

After all, what could possibly be interesting about a short, fat boy called Humpty or Dumpty, who lived a long, long time ago and who fell off his wall? Or, for that matter, how much fun can you have with three blind mice being chased around the kitchen by a farmer’s wife?

Surely that has happened on farms across the land since knives were first carved out of flint? And why would anybody, in this case me, want to create a book full of stories such as the one about Jack Horner, a little boy who shoved his thumb into a pie and stole a plum?

What drama is there in that? Even I have done a spot of plum-stealing from pies, and I wasn’t a bad lad either.

But, instead, this has turned out to be the most rewarding piece of work I have done so far.

Because once it becomes obvious that many nursery rhymes have been written about, or evolved from, particular historic events and then used as a means of passing important news around the countryside, simply by word of mouth, then the research becomes a fascinating study into a bygone way of life.

The historical significance of children’s rhymes is often lost on most adults, let alone the children who learn them by heart almost as soon as they learn to say anything at all. For all of us, the first things we are taught, after learning how to talk, are nursery rhymes.

Hence by the time we are adults, we will know the words to hundreds of them without ever being aware of their meaning or real importance. And they are important, in my view, because many of them tell the true tale of some of history’s darkest or most tragic events.

Knowing the origins of a rhyme will help to preserve that piece of history, or the layers of history that accrue around a centuries-old rhyme. It also provides a fascinating insight into how news of historical events was transmitted around the land long before the days of instant communication by telephone, radio, television or the internet.

For example, would you expect Humpty Dumpty to be the name of one of King Charles I’s cannons located on top of a church tower at the Siege of Colchester in 1648 during the English Civil War?

Operated by One-Eyed Thompson, a Royalist gunner, it successfully kept Cromwell’s forces at bay until the Parliamentarians managed to blow it off the tower, allowing them to take over the town.

An important battle was lost (or won, depending on your viewpoint) and a turning point in history then marked by a rhyme, soon repeated in every village and every hamlet as news of Cromwell’s victory spread throughout the land.

Or would you imagine for a moment that the three blind mice could be the Oxford Martyrs Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, all burned at the stake for their faith, by the Farmer’s Wife, Mary I?

Or what about my personal favourite - the story of the steward to the Dean of Glastonbury, Thomas Horner, who was sent to see Henry VIII with a bowl full of property deeds disguised as a pie in an attempt to bribe the king?

On the way to London, Horner, it is said, reached into the pie and a stole a plum piece of real estate for himself at Mells Manor.

And while some of the other stories behind the rhymes may well have been elaborated, embellished or even rewritten to suit events, in the case of ‘Little Jack Horner’ there really was a Thomas Horner at Glastonbury who took ownership of Mells Manor during the reign of Henry VIII and whose descendants still live there to this day.

All in all, these