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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 ...
Origin unknown, sung by minstrels and sailors as early as 1898. As I was going by Charing Cross 'As I was going to Charing Cross' United Kingdom c. 1845 [120] Origin unknown, the rhyme is thought to refer to the equestrian statue of Charles I. As I was going to St Ives: Great Britain: c. 1730 [121] Exact origin unknown. Cock-a-Doodle Doo: Great ...
The rhyme is of a type calling out otherwise respectable people for disrespectable actions, in this case, ogling naked ladies – the maids. The nonsense "rub-a-dub-dub" develops a phonetic association of social disapprobation, analogous to "tsk-tsk", albeit of a more lascivious variety.
"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.
It is a single quatrain with external rhymes [5] that follow the pattern of AABB and with a trochaic metre, which is common in nursery rhymes. [6] The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (London, 1870), as outlined below: [7]
The cover of L. Leslie Brooke's Ring O' Roses (1922) shows nursery rhyme characters performing the game. The origins and earliest wording of the rhyme remain unknown. In many versions of the game, a group of children forms a ring, dances in a circle around one person, and then stoops or curtsies on the final line.
As with many nursery rhymes, attempts have been made to find origins and meanings for the rhyme, most of which have no corroborating evidence. [1] Katherine Elwes Thomas in The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930) suggested the rhyme referred to resentment at the heavy taxation on wool. [6]
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 ...