Origins Of Nursery Rhymes

The history behind the simple rhymes is quite that, simple, but with many different interpretations because they were originally oral. Nursery rhymes were never actually meant for entertaining or teaching lessons as they are used for now. “They were used to satirize the famous and ‘noble’” (Borgia 1). To avoid the fear of incarceration or a charged that would indefinitely lead to death, they would make up names to mock or ridicule someone of a high status in society.

A bard dare not openly and obviously satirize their King and Queen, as this would lead to cer

tain imprisonment. So, to avoid this, they wrote rhymes to tell the tales and used nicknames for the characters they were portraying. (Borgia 1)

Even today the egg is a symbol of life. When Humpty Dumpty falls and breaks (dies) ‘all the king’s men and all the king’s horses’ can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together (bring back to life). As true today as it was 500 years ago.

Another rhyme that many find agreement upon is the verse of Three Blind Mice. The explanation of this tale is that the three blind mice were Protestant clergymen, Lattimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, who died at the stake. Then the farmer with the carving knife is Queen Mary I, because her estates included a lot of farmland. But, not all nursery rhymes are about politics or making fun at royalty or nobility. There are simple rhymes such as Hot Cross Buns. “To this day, especially in England, hot cross buns are traditional food on Good Friday” (Schafer). Then the rhyme that most likely has the greatest amount of research done on it would be, Ring around the Rosies. The rhyme follows as is:

Some topics in this essay:
Black Plague, Ring Rosies, Humpty Dumpty, King Queen, Nursery Rhymes, Middle Ages, Victorian England, Black Sheep, King Richard, Couldn’t Humpty, nursery rhymes, humpty dumpty, ring rosies, rhymes told, blind mice, hot cross buns, black sheep, cross buns, baa baa, simple rhymes, hot cross, baa black sheep, baa baa black,