Popular Nursery Rhymes and Their Origin

As a kid, we have always experienced singing nursery rhymes at our preschool. But do you know when were our favourite verses first published and their origin? Let’s informed about the cause of favourite rhymes and when were they composed.

Here We Disappear Round the Mulberry Bush 

“Here We Disappear Round The Mulberry Bush” is a one of the children’ favourite nursery rhyme and singing activity. The rhyme was first recorded in the 19th century by James Orchard Halliwell as an English girls’ activity in the mid-1 9th century. Historians believe that the anthem originated with female prisoners at HMP Wakefield. They made a stem from Hatfield Hall, which was then nurtured and it developed into an amply full-grown mulberry tree. The prisoners employed around this mulberry tree in the moonlight. Till date, there is no indication to brace his theory.

Some historians too associate the rhyme with Britain’s struggle to produce silk. The mulberry trees were a key habitat for the gardening of silkworms, so they ripened the tree on a large scale. In nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, Britain tried to compete with China’s silk production but suffered a huge loss as mulberry trees were too sensitive to frost and all withered. The usual lyrics’ Here we go round the mulberry bush/ On a cold and chilly morning’ is therefore considered as a laugh about the overcomes faced by the industry.

Baa Baa Black Sheep 

“Baa Baa Black Sheep” is a popular English nursery rhyme. Various ideologies are associated with the source of the chorus. It is popularly believed that it is a complaint against Medieval English ponderous taxes on wool.

Hickory Dickory Dock 

“Hickory Dickory Dock” is a well-known nursery rhyme in English-speaking world. Few professionals came up with the philosophy that the rhyme originated as a counting-out verse. In the 19th century, Westmorland shepherds exerted the numbers Hevera (8 ), Devera( 9) and Dick( 10 ). Another popular possibility relevant to its source is that the “Hickory Dickory Dock” song is based on an astronomical clock at Exeter Cathedral, which has a small opening in the door for the resident feline to catch a mouse. That’s really interesting!

Mary Had a Little Lamb 

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is one of the children’ favourite nursery rhymes. It is an entertaining narration of Mary and her little lamb.

The nursery rhyme was first published by the Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon, as an poem by Sarah Josepha Hale on May 24, 1830, and was possibly inspired by an actual incident.

There are competing theories on the origin and inspiration of this poem. One holds that John Roulstone wrote the first four lines and that the final twelve lines, less childlike than the first, were composed by Sarah Josepha Hale; others claim that Hale was responsible for the entire poem.

As a young girl, Mary Sawyer (later Mary Tyler) kept a pet lamb that she took to school one day at the suggestion of her brother and this led to commotion in the school which inspired the poem as recorded.