Nursery rhymes for holidays

Title	Supposed origin	Earliest date known
Meaning supported by evidence
"Baa, Baa, Black Sheep"	The slave trade; medieval wool tax	c. 1744 (Britain)	Medieval taxes were much lower than two thirds. There is no evidence of a connection with slavery.^[17]
"Doctor Foster"	Edward I of England	1844 (Britain)	Given the recent recording the medieval meaning is unlikely.^[17]
"Goosey Goosey Gander"	Henry VIII of England	1784 (Britain)	No evidence that it is linked to the propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII.^[24]
"The Grand Old Duke of York"	Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in the Wars of the Roses; James II of England, or Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany Flanders campaign of 1794–95.	1913 (Britain)	The more recent campaign is more likely, but first record is very late. The song may be based on a song about the king of France.^[25]
"Hickory Dickory Dock"	Exeter Cathedral astronomical clock	1744 (Britain)	In the 17th century the clock had a small hole in the door below the face for the resident cat to hunt mice.^[26]
"Humpty Dumpty"	Richard III of England; Cardinal Wolsey and a cannon from the English Civil War	1797 (Britain)	No evidence that it refers to any historical character and is originally a riddle found in many European cultures. The story about the cannon is based on a spoof verse written in 1956.^[17][27]
"Jack and Jill"	Norse mythology; Charles I of England; King John of England; Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette	1765 (Britain)	No evidence that it stretches back to early medieval era and poem predates the French Revolution.^[17]
"Little Boy Blue"	Thomas Wolsey	c. 1760 (Britain)	Unknown; the identification is speculative.^[17]
"Little Jack Horner"	Dissolution of the Monasteries	1725 (Britain), but story known from c. 1520	The rhyme may have been adapted to satirise Thomas Horner who benefited from the Dissolution, but the connection is speculative.^[17]
"London Bridge Is Falling Down"	Burial of children in foundations; burning of wooden bridge by Vikings	1659 (Britain)	Unknown, but verse exists in many cultures and may have been adapted to London when it reached England.^[17]
"Mary Had a Little Lamb"	An original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale inspired by an actual incident.	1830 (US)	As a girl, Mary Sawyer (later Mrs. Mary Tyler) kept a pet lamb, which she took to school one day at the suggestion of her brother.^[28]
"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary"	Mary, Queen of Scots, or Mary I of England	c. 1744 (Britain)	Unknown; all identifications are speculative.^[17]
"The Muffin Man"	Street sellers of muffins in Britain.	c. 1820 (Britain)	The location of Drury Lane is a thoroughfare bordering Covent Garden in London.^[29]
"Old King Cole"	Various early medieval kings and Richard Cole-brook a Reading clothier	1708–09 (Britain)	Richard Cole-brook was widely known as King Cole in the 17th century.^[17]
"Ring a Ring o' Roses"	Black Death (1348) or The Great Plague of London (1665)	1880 (Britain)	No evidence that the poem has any relation to the plague. The 'plague' references are not present in the earliest versions.^[21][17]
"Rock-a-bye Baby"	The Egyptian god Horus; Son of James II of England preceding the Glorious Revolution; Native American childcare; anti-Jacobite satire	c. 1765 (Britain)	Unknown; all identifications are speculative.^[17]
"Sing a Song of Sixpence"	Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, with Catherine of Aragon representing the queen, and Anne Boleyn the maid.	c. 1744 (Britain)	Unknown; all identifications are speculative.^[30]
"There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe"	Queen Caroline of Ansbach; Queen Caroline, wife of King George II of Great Britain; Elizabeth Vergoose of Boston.	1784 (Britain)	Unknown; all identifications are speculative.^[17]
"Three Blind Mice"	Mary I of England	c. 1609 (Britain)	Unknown; the identification is speculative.^[17]
"Who Killed Cock Robin?"	Norse mythology; Robin Hood; William Rufus; Robert Walpole; Ritual bird sacrifice	c. 1744 (Britain)	The story, and perhaps rhyme, dates from at least the later medieval era, but all identifications are speculative.^[17]

Nursery rhyme revisionism

"Baa, Baa, Black Sheep", from a 1901 illustration by William Wallace Denslow

There have been several attempts, across the world, to revise nursery rhymes (along with fairy tales and popular songs). As recently as the late 18th century, rhymes like "Little Robin Redbreast" were occasionally cleaned up for a young audience.^[31] In the late 19th century the major concern seems to have been violence and crime, which led some children's publishers in the United States like Jacob Abbot and Samuel Goodrich to change Mother Goose rhymes.^[32]

In the early and mid-20th centuries this was a form of bowdlerisation, concerned with some of the more violent elements of nursery rhymes and led to the formation of organisations like the British 'Society for Nursery Rhyme Reform'.^[33] Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim strongly criticized this revisionism, on the grounds that it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues and it has been argued that revised versions may not perform the functions of catharsis for children, or allow them to imaginatively deal with violence and danger.^[34]

In the late 20th century revisionism of nursery rhymes became associated with the idea of political correctness. Most attempts to reform nursery rhymes on this basis appear to be either very small scale, light-hearted updating, like Felix Dennis's When Jack Sued Jill – Nursery Rhymes for Modern Times (2006), or satires written as if from the point of view of political correctness in order to condemn reform.^[35] The controversy in Britain in 1986 over changing the language of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" because, it was alleged in the popular press, it was seen as racially dubious, was apparently based only on a rewriting of the rhyme in one private nursery, as an exercise for the children.^[36]

Nursery rhymes and education

It has been argued that nursery rhymes set to music aid in a child's development.^[37][38] In the German Kniereitvers, the child is put in mock peril, but the experience is a pleasurable one of care and support, which over time the child comes to command for itself.^[39] Research also supports the assertion that music and rhyme increase a child's ability in spatial reasoning, which aid mathematics skills.^[40]