I’ve known for years that the popular nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie” references the Black Death (bubonic plague), but I was curious about the historical origins of other nursery rhymes, so I set out to do a little research.

It turns out that, even though it’s easy to find online articles about the disturbing meanings behind childhood rhymes, more often than not one accepted interpretation does not exist.

For example, “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” is said to refer to either Mary Queen of Scots or Bloody Mary. In the first interpretation “silver bells and cockle shells” refer to ornaments on Mary Queen of Scots’ dress, and in the second to instruments of torture used against Protestants.

I’d heard that “Rock-a-bye Baby” referred to James Francis Edward Stuart, son of King James II, but then I read that it may have been written by a boy who sailed on the Mayflower. In that case it depicts the Native American custom of setting baby cradles in tree branches.

Recently scholars have even questioned whether “Ring Around the Rosie” (also known as “Ring a Ring O’Roses”) refers to the plague at all, since the rhyme was not documented until 1881, while the two great plagues took place centuries earlier (1348 and 1665).

So keeping in mind that the original meanings of most nursery rhymes are uncertain, here’s what I’ve learned about the (possible) historical origins of three nursery rhymes that I knew little about.

1. Humpty Dumpty was a siege cannon used by Royalist forces during the English Civil War. It sat on the church tower of St. Mary-at-the-Walls for eleven weeks, until the tower was blown up by the Roundheads. Humpty Dumpty could not be “put together again” after he sank into the marshland.

2. R.S. Duncan, a former governor of Wakefield Prison, believes that the rhyme “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” refers to the mulberry tree around which female prisoners used to exercise.

3. Most scholars agree that “Baa Baa Black Sheep” refers to the Great Custom, an export tax on wool introduced by King Edward I in 1275. One third of the price of wool went to the king or nobles and one third to the monasteries or church. Until the 16th century the final line went, “And none for the little boy who cries down the lane,” referring to the fact that there was practically nothing left for the shepherd or farmer.

Sources

“9 Jolly Nursery Rhymes With Deeply Disturbing Meanings”
“The Dark Origins of 11 Classic Nursery Rhymes”
“English Nursery Rhymes with Unexpected and Sometimes Disturbing Historical Origins”
“Nursery Rhymes” and “More Nursery Rhymes”

If you have suggestions for historical topics that I should blog about, please leave them in the comments!