The creators behind timeless verses

Who said Humpty Dumpty was an egg? Stories of 10 ageless nursery rhymes

Image: Sven Brandsma

We have been singing the same nursery rhymes to little kids for years and years, often without considering the words we are repeating. Some of these songs, narrating the adventures of farm animals, stars, and itsy bitsy spiders, have very cryptic lyrics that we learned as infants and never again questioned. Who wrote these rhymes? How long have humans been singing them to one another? In this article, we unveil the stories behind 10 timeless verses.

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Do you know the five stanzas of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?" Very few people do. The ultimate lullaby belongs to the opening verses of "The Star", a poem written in 1806 by English author Jane Taylor. The poem was originally published in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection by her and her sister Ann.

The couplets are set to the very famous French melody officially called "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" ("Ah, will I tell you, mom"). It’s a universal classic from 1761; Mozart himself had composed a set of variations based on the melody. However, it wasn’t until thirty years after the Taylor sisters’ publication that another book proposed singing their poem to the catchy music. The nursery rhyme "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" uses a variant of the same tune.

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Nowhere in the poem is it mentioned that Humpty Dumpty is an anthropomorphic egg. The lyrics are enigmatic and many attempts have been made to link them to historical figures, like kings or battle heroes. The first version of the rhyme appeared in writing in 1797 in Juvenile Amusements, a music collection by English composer Samuel Arnold. It is believed that "Humpty Dumpty" was 18th-century slang for a clumsy person.

Why an egg, then? Some believed the poem was a riddle to which the answer was that Humpty Dumpty was not a human, but some fragile thing. It was none other than Lewis Carrol, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who first depicted Humpty Dumpty explicitly as looking like an egg. The character appears on a wall in the popular book’s 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, where Alice meets him and points out how much like an egg he looks.

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"Mary Had a Little Lamb" is based on a true story. It was first published in 1830 by American writer Sarah Josepha Hale. She was a teacher who schooled girls and boys in her hometown, Newport, New Hampshire. One day, a student named Mary showed up accompanied by her pet lamb. This incident, the children’s reactions, and the obvious affection between Mary and her lamb —who "followed her everywhere she went"—, eventually inspired Hale to write a three-stanza poem called Mary’s Lamb.

In the same year, a composer from Boston, Lowell Mason, rearranged the poem and set it to music to have a singable version. We still use the words Mason wrote, but the melody we sing today is not the one he composed. We usually sing it to an 1867 tune known as "Merrily We Roll Along."

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For context about how old this song is, Mozart wouldn’t be born until 50 years after its earliest known version. "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" appears in a 1706 opera by English writer and composer Thomas d'Urfey. The play, The Kingdom of the Birds, included a song called "In the Fields in Frost and Snow", which was a very near version of the song we know today, down to the iconic "Here a Boo, there a Boo, every-where a Boo".

It is unknown whether this was already a popular song that d’Urfey quoted in his play. What we know, though, is that after his opera the song became very widespread, and eventually became a folk song with varying versions in Britain, Ireland, and North America.

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This one was conceived from the start as a song. The rhyme has only four lines. The first printing of the song is dated 1852 and attributed to author and teacher Eliphalet Oram Lyte. The melody, however, was very different from the one that was later popularized. It wasn’t until 1881 that the tune as we know it today was attached to the words.

The current version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat is intended to be sung as a four-part round canon. That means that the melody of each line can be combined to harmonize with any of the others. That’s why it’s usually taught to children and popularly used to teach choir singing.

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Children from as far back as the Late Middle Ages might have already been singing this song. The earliest printed version of nursery rhymes about the London Bridge falling appeared in England in 1744 in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, though the rhyme may have been sung long before this.

There are many myths behind the lyrics of this song, from claiming that the bridge falls because of Viking attacks, to stating that the "fair Lady" mentioned is Virgin Mary.

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This beloved nursery folk song was only born in 1938 when it was published as "The Bus" in the American Childhood magazine. Verna Hills, born in 1898 in Boston, conceived this tune to distract the little ones during long bus rides. That’s why the repetitive yet catchy lyrics enlist parts of the moving bus while adding some mimic or sound to go with it. "The Bus" eventually became a folk song also popular in Canada, the UK, and Australia.

The song is believed to be based on "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", an old English nursery rhyme about a group of young ones going about everyday chores. This one had been set to music from an opera published in mid-1700s London. Its melody and rhythm are very similar to the one we know today.

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Also known as the "Spider Song," this rhyme has received different names throughout English-speaking countries. Its earliest appearance seems to have been in Arthur Walbridge North’s 1910 book Camp and Camino in Lower California, except that it mentions a "blooming, bloody spider" instead.

In varying versions and regions, the spider has also been called "eency weency" and "teeny weeny." Other countries added further variations to one of the most famous nursery rhymes ever. In France, it’s a gypsy spider; in the Netherlands, it’s a beetle; and in Norway, the spider is called Peter.

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The timeless finger-counting nursery rhyme was designed to teach children coordination and dexterity. Famously, the words match the narration of the fates of 5 pigs while folding the fingers on a child’s hand one by one.

The first time the poem appeared in writing was in 1728, in a medley called The Nurses Song. Since then, over the decades, varying versions have been written. Some say it may have been inspired by "To Market, To Market," also known as "To Market, To Market, to Buy a Fat Pig," another folk nursery rhyme with a first version that dates back as far as 1598.

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You probably have noticed that the iconic ABC song uses the same melody as the aforementioned "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"; Ah! vous dirai-je, maman. However, the lyrics were not applied to the melody until 1835, when Boston publisher Charles Bradlee decided to borrow the familiar tune to sing the alphabet to it, as a strategy to help children learn letters through a catchy and well-known melody. It became a preschool classic, and it has been adapted to be used in many languages other than English.

MYTH-MANIA

Spark Your Curiosity With 10 American Folk Stories and Urban Myths

Image: Michael Herren

Delve into the mysterious realm of American folklore and urban mythology, where reality blurs the lines with the supernatural. These captivating tales of mystery, passed down through generations, are now part of the very fabric of American culture.

From strange creatures of the forest to all kinds of unexplained phenomena, here are 10 riveting stories of the unknown that are as American as apple pie.

Image: Henry Lai

Location: Point Pleasant, West Virginia

The legend of the Mothman first took flight in the 1960s, in the quiet town of Point Pleasant. Witnesses reported encounters with a winged humanoid with glowing red eyes that induced a sort of hypnotic effect on onlookers. The most infamous sighting preceded the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, leading locals to consider his appearances a bad omen.

While today most agree that the legend likely originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes, for many the Mothman remains an enigma. Was it an evil creature or a guardian spirit that wanted to warn of impending tragedy?

Image: Timothy Dykes

Location: Pine Barrens, New Jersey

Legend has it that this supernatural creature originated in 1735 from a resident of the Pine Barrens called Jane Leeds, better known as "Mother Leeds." After giving birth to twelve healthy children, Mother Leeds' cursed 13th child was born with bat-like wings, hooves, a forked tail, and a devilish visage. But before anyone could recover from their shock, the devil child escaped, flying up the chimney and disappearing into the dense forest.

There are many versions of the tale, retold many times through the centuries, but what’s sure is that the Jersey Devil is now a permanent resident of both the Pine Barrens and New Jerseyans’ minds.

Image: Will

Location: Anywhere in the States

An urban legend so popular that there are more versions of it than anyone could remember, the Vanishing Hitchhiker’s Tale has hitchhiked through the whole country, from mouth to mouth. However, all versions agree on the following: Travelers pick up a hitchhiker who mysteriously disappears during the journey. In most cases, the ghostly hitchhiker leaves behind a personal item - later revealed to be from a deceased person - as a chilling reminder of their spectral presence.

Image: Markus Spiske

Location: Sleepy Hollow, New York

Washington Irving's timeless tale introduced the infamous Headless Horseman in the New York village of Sleepy Hollow. The ghostly figure, believed to be a decapitated Hessian soldier, roams the countryside seeking his lost head. The legend has inspired countless adaptations and remains a Halloween staple. Interestingly, Irving was also responsible for the popular story of Rip Van Winkle, a man who falls asleep for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains after being tricked by a group of mysterious Dutchmen.

Image: Robert Gourley

Location: Fairfax County, Virginia

Originating from two real incidents in Northern Virginia in 1970, the Bunny Man legend has taken a life of its own, becoming an urban myth throughout neighboring states. While there are many variations to the tale, most involve an escaped mental patient donning a bunny costume and wielding a hatchet, terrorizing anyone who has the misfortune of crossing paths with him.

The Fairfax County Police actually opened an investigation into the reported incidents, but the case was eventually closed for lack of evidence.

Image: Peter Neumann

Location: Chicago, Illinois

For almost a century, the Chicago Cubs MLB team endured a purported curse, allegedly stemming from the mistreatment of William Sianis, the owner of a local tavern called Billy Goat. Faithful to his business’ name, Sianis brought his pet goat Murphy to one of the games of the 1945 World Series at Wrigley Field. When the pair were asked to leave the stadium, he got enraged and declared, "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more."

According to fans and believers, the tavern owner’s curse caused the team's prolonged championship drought, which was finally broken in 2016, after 71 years.

Image: Jon Sailer

Location: Pacific Northwest

In the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, the elusive Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch (an anglicized version of sasq'ets, meaning "hairy man" in the Halkomelem language), has been the subject of countless sightings. Bigfoot is usually described as a very large and bipedal ape-like creature covered in dense dark-brown hair.

Some Bigfoot believers attribute the reports to the survival of a relict population of the extinct southeast Asian ape species Gigantopithecus blacki, an animal of very large proportions certainly compatible with the sightings.

While scientists and skeptics dismiss these encounters as mostly hoaxes or misidentifications of known animals (particularly black bears), the allure of discovering this giant and mysterious creature persists, with dedicated enthusiasts exploring remote areas in search of conclusive evidence.

Image: Steinar Engeland

Location: Greenbrier County, West Virginia

In 19th-century West Virginia, Elva Zona Heaster’s testimony from beyond the grave played a pivotal role in solving her own murder. Elva's mother claimed her daughter's ghost revealed the truth about her suspicious death, leading authorities to reopen her case. Although it is unlikely prosecutors believed the ghost story, there was enough doubt about the case to justify a new inquiry. After reexamining the evidence, unmistakable signs of violence were found on her body, leading to the conviction of the main suspect, her own husband.

A unique blend of ghost story and true crime, the story of the Greenbrier Ghost remains forever etched in the memory of West Virginians.

Image: IQRemix from Canada, CC BY 2.0

Location: Anywhere with an Internet connection

A recent addition to the long-winded bestiary of urban mythology, the Slender Man is a faceless, extremely tall entity that stalks and traumatizes children. Born from internet forums and "creepypasta" tales (meaning viral spooky stories that are copy and pasted - and often enriched in a collaborative fashion by anonymous Internet users), this modern myth is influenced by the writings of various horror authors, including H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.

Image: Oliver Pacas

Location: Lincoln County, Nevada

Hidden in the Nevada desert, Area 51 is a highly classified United States Air Force facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. The secrecy and isolation of the facility have fueled conspiracy theories and urban myths surrounding extraterrestrial life and government secrets for decades. Many conspiracy theories claim that the base hides evidence or remains of crashed UFOs, weather control devices, and even time travel technology.

Ironically, the rumors may have helped to maintain the secrecy over Area 51’s actual operations, mainly related to the testing of classified aircraft prototypes.