Mother Goose as a Cultural Influence |
| Where did the rhymes originate? |
| How old are the rhymes? No one really knows.
The Earliest printed mention of "Mother Goose" appeared Loret's La Muse Historique which contains the line "Like a Mother Goose story", implying that the name would have been commonly recognized by the general public with no need of explanation.
In 1697 Charles Perrault, who is most often associated with the story of Cinderella, published "Stories of My Mother Goose". Shakespeare makes reference to nursery rhymes in several of his works. The familiar "Humpty Dumpty" and "30 white horses upon a red hill" are riddles similar to those which were a popular form of entertainment among the Anglo Saxons well before 1066. According to the Reverend Sabine Barin-Gould, an Iclandic scholar, "Jack and Jill" were originally "Kjuki and Bil" and would have been familiar to early Icelandic settlers such as Eric the Red. Wherever they came from, Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes are an important part of western European and American culture. Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes are part of the oral cultural and literary heritage of most of the readers of this page. They are bits of history, nature lore, snatches of songs, remnents of folk-magic, and pieces of science and poetry, which have been handed down from mother to child, or from grandmother to grandchild for centuries. Many adults, who thought they had forgotten the rhymes, find strange bits of poetry and nonsense springing from their lips the moment they cuddle their first child or grandchild. According to an Oxford University study of 3000 British school children which was published in January 2001, children who sing songs and recite nursery rhymes in childhood were likly to stay happily married and stay out of jail. Dr. Alison Elliott, early childhood education specialist from the University of West Sydney, stated: "Nursery rhymes teach children about the animals around them...they teach them about their environment, about math, science and language." I hope you will enjoy sharing the rhymes with the children in your life and keep this important part of our culture alive. |