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Another theory sees the rhyme as connected to Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), with "how does your garden grow" referring to her reign over her realm, "silver bells" referring to cathedral bells, "cockle shells" insinuating that her husband was not faithful to her, and "pretty maids all in a row" referring to her ladies-in-waiting – "The ...
The nursery rhyme is a form of teaching such associations in folklore: for individuals raised with such social codes, the phrase "rub-a-dub-dub" alone could stand in for gossip or innuendo without communicating all of the details.
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European 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. [1] From the mid-16th century nursery rhymes began to be recorded in English plays, and most popular ...
Included in Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland from 1842. Hot Cross Buns: Great Britain 1767 [43] This originated as an English street cry that was later perpetuated as a nursery rhyme. The words closest to the rhyme that has survived were printed in 1767. Humpty Dumpty: Great Britain 1797 [44]
It has been suggested that “it’s raining. It’s pouring” is a metaphor for alcohol liberally flowing. The old man gets drunk causing him to bump his head. It has further been suggested that the verse is a "classic description" of a head injury ("bumped his head"), followed by a lucid interval and an inability to resume normal activity ("couldn't get up in the morning"). [7]
"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.
The rhyme is followed by a note: "This may serve as a warning to the proud and ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last." [4]James Orchard Halliwell, in his The Nursery Rhymes of England (1842), notes that the third line read "When the wind ceases the cradle will fall" in the earlier Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784) and himself records "When the bough bends" in the second ...
Illustration by Beatrix Potter in Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes (1922). 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: