Did They Hide a Dark History In The Jingling Of Nursery Rhymes? Research Says Yes

Close your eyes for a second; you’re a five year old kid again. You have just returned from  nursery school  humming “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, and giggling not because you understand it, but because it sounds soft, safe, and silly. The same nursery rhyme your parents sang, the same one you’ll probably pass down and feel nostalgic every time you hear it. 

But what if those innocent little lines, the ones stitched into our childhood memory, were never meant for children at all? 

And what if the rhymes we sing so proudly in English-medium schools are actually the colonial rulers’ witty way of slipping their history into our lullabies or making their history look like a fairytale?

Based on the insightful research on the topic Nursery Rhymes and the History Behind Them by Dr. Atiqa Kelsy (2016), let’s take a closer look at some well-known rhymes, deconstruct their possible histories, and discuss what we, as teachers, parents, influencers, and people, may be missing. Continue reading. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Baa baa black sheep,

Have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir,

Three bags full.

One for the Master,

One for the Dame,

And one for the little boy And none for the little boy

Who lives  cries down the lane.

Sounds harmless, right? Beyond the sheep-stately response though, is one of the worst economic facts of medieval England.

According to Dr. Atiqa Kelsy, such rhyme could be dated as the year 1275, The Great Custom, a wool tax levied by King Edward I. The three bags full which allegedly represented wool collected by the King (the master), the Church (the dame) and the poor farmer left with none.

So when little kids in Indian classrooms sing it today, what are they really singing? Nursery rhyme or an old tale of slavery and exploitation?

Should we continue smiling when they sing it, or stop and say: Whose wool are we continuing to pay?

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.

It sounds like a harmless nursery rhyme, two friends, a hill, and a fall. But Jack and Jill might be hiding much more.

One story says it began in the English village of Kilmersdon, where a young couple secretly met on a hill in 1697. Jill got pregnant, Jack died in an accident, and she passed away soon after, turning a love story into tragedy.

Another version links it to King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. Jack’s “broken crown” is said to represent the King losing his head, and Jill “tumbling after” refers to the Queen’s execution later that year.

But the most believable theory comes from England’s own history. Under King Charles I, taxes on drinks were changed, a “Jack” (half-pint) and a “Gill” (quarter-pint) were both reduced in size, though the tax stayed the same. So “Jack fell down” and “Jill came tumbling after” might just be a witty protest against unfair taxation.

Whatever the truth, this little rhyme isn’t as innocent as it sounds, it’s a tiny tale of love, loss, power, and politics disguised as a children’s song

Humpty Dumpty 

Humpty Dumpty was his name.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

We have all been raised imagining Humpty Dumpty to be a fat little egg who fell off a wall. But the fact is that Humpty was not an egg! And guess what, Humpty Dumpty was not even a person. He was a cannon of the supporters of King Charles I in the English Civil war of 1648.

This cannon, named Humpty Dumpty, was apparently attached to the tower of the church of St. Mary at the city of Colchester. From this high perch, it helped the King’s men fend off the Roundheads (the Parliamentarian forces) who were laying siege to the town. But fate had other plans.

The Parliamentarian army seized the opportunity to retaliate furiously, striking the tower of the church with the cannonballs of their own. The building collapsed, and down fell Humpty in the marshy bottom. On attempting to drag it back up, the Royalists discovered the weapon to be foolishly shattered, thus the line, “King horses and King men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!”

The original rhymes went like: 

In sixteen hundred and forty-eight

When England suffered pains of state

The Roundheads laid siege to Colchester town

Where the King’s men still fought for the crown.

There one-eyed Thompson stood on the wall

A gunner with the deadliest aim of all

From St Mary’s tower the cannon he fired

Humpty Dumpty was his name.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

Centuries later, in 1871, writer Lewis Carroll included Humpty Dumpty as a character in his book Through the Looking-Glass. Illustrator John Tenniel drew the scene, in a humorous manner, into which he simply gave Humpty a round egg-shaped form, possibly because the rhyme never specified what Humpty looked like. Such a simple artistic choice made the difference.

Within a generation, children all over the world stopped imagining a cannon on the wall and began to think of a funny egg on a wall. And that’s how a weapon of war had turned into a cartoon of a child; a fragment of bloody history, sanded down and made a bed-time song.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How many of our sweet old innocences that we were brought up with, were really created in blood and fighting, and only to be re-created as nursery stories in another generation?

Little Jack Horner

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, “What a good boy am I!

On the surface, it reads like a child trying to get dessert before dinner but under the sheets this cute, cheerful nursery rhyme lies a tale of betrayal, greed, and one of England’s darkest church scandals.

Little Jack Horner is thought to be the name of Thomas Horner, steward to Bishop Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey - at one time the wealthiest monastery in England. In 1536 he, Henry VIII, ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1540) to confiscate their gold, land and wealth when he broke away from the Catholic Church.

The Bishop is said to have attempted to bribe the King with a dozen deeds to property, concealed in a Christmas pie, the sender being Horner. But on his way to London, Horner allegedly “put in his thumb” and pulled out one of the deeds to the Manor of Mells, the most valuable of them all.

That was his “plum.” The Bishop was later accused of treason, brutally executed and Glastonbury Abbey destroyed. And who gained? Horner, who moved into the Manor of Mells conveniently afterwards.

It is a mystery whether he stole it or was rewarded due to his betrayal. However, the smug line of rhyme What a good boy am I unexpectedly is chilling, right?

Ring Around the Rosie

Ring a ring a roses,

A pocket full of posies

A-tish-oo, a-tish-oo

We all fall down.

(To use the original ending)

Ashes ashes

We all fall down.

For decades, people believed this rhyme was born from the Great Plague of London (1665). The “rosie,” they said, referred to the rash that bloomed on victims’ skin.  “Posies” the herbs people carried to mask the stench of death.  And “we all fall down”? The ultimate end, a nation collapsing under a wave of disease that killed nearly 15% of England’s population.

Sounds hauntingly poetic, doesn’t it?  A children’s song turned into a mass graveyard echo. But here’s the twist you probably didn’t know, it’s actually not true. According to folklore expert Philip Hiscock, and verified by Snopes.com, the plague interpretation didn’t appear in writing until centuries later.

He suggests something far less morbid and yet, oddly revealing. In 19th-century Protestant Britain, dancing was banned in many communities. So young people invented “play parties”  group games that looked innocent but cleverly mimicked the rhythm and joy of dance. “Ring Around the Rosie,” he argues, wasn’t about death but about rebellion.

It was how people danced without dancing. How they sang without singing. And how joy, even when suppressed, found its way back into motion. Maybe the real meaning is that we don't just “fall down.” We rise again in rhythm, in song, in secret. 

London Bridge is Falling Down 

London bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down,

London bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

Build it up with wood and clay,

Wood and clay, wood and clay,

Build it up with wood and clay,

My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,

Wash away, wash away,

Wood and clay will wash away,

My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,

Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar,

Build it up with bricks and mortar,

My fair lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,

Will not stay, will not stay,

Bricks and mortar will not stay,

My fair lady.

Build it up with iron and steel,

Iron and steel, iron and steel,

Build it up with iron and steel,

My fair lady.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,

Bend and bow, bend and bow,

Iron and steel will bend and bow,

My fair lady.

Build it up with silver and gold,

Silver and gold, silver and gold,

Build it up with silver and gold,

My fair lady.

Silver and gold will be stolen away,

Stolen away, stolen away,

Silver and gold will be stolen away,

My fair lady.

Set a man to watch all nigh,

Watch all night, watch all night,

Set a man to watch all night,

My fair lady.

Suppose the man should fall asleep,

Fall asleep, fall asleep,

Suppose the man should fall asleep?

My fair lady.

Give him a pipe to smoke all night,

Smoke all night, smoke all night,

Give him a pipe to smoke all night,

My fair lady

Whenever we read the word London or London bridge, the first thing that comes to our mind is the nostalgic nursery rhyme, isn’t it? We have all sung it, London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down... and never asked ourselves why the bridge falls down in a song that has passed down through the centuries. What sounds like a decent nursery rhyme is, in reality, a poetic record of destruction, greed, and rebirth that mirrors the very history of London itself.  

The Romans constructed the original London Bridge in the 1st century with wood and clay, just as the lyrics state. But the Thames was ruthless. Floods, fires, Viking raids continued to rip it to shreds and with every generation, it was rebuilt just to be knocked over. 

Each line, the verses, were not nonsense, as, in every verse, there was wood and clay will wash away, bricks and mortar will not stay. It was a mirror of a city which had no intention of giving up on reconstruction, even when the whole of what it was creating fell down.

The city made the decision to dream bigger by the 12th century. A priest-engineer, Peter de Colechurch, also designed a giant stone bridge and it required 33 years to be constructed. It contained 20 arches, chapel, fortified gates, and almost 140 shops resting on its length. 

Suppose it were a street of living breathing, floating up the river, with merchants and priests and bakers and warm bread. It became a world on its own, an icon of increasing strength and aspiration of London. But ambition has its cost. Fires erupted, buildings crumbled and greed ate through them like stone. 

The cautionary rhyme of warning, Silver and gold will be stolen away, came to pass. In 1666, the Great Fire of London burnt much of the city down and the bridge stood shaking on its pillars.

London made another attempt to recover as centuries flew by. A bridge that was larger, more powerful, and was to be permanent, appeared in the 1800s. But even that monument had not been spared of the curse of change. 

By the 1960s the Victorian bridge was sold bit by bit, to an American businessman, dismantled and shipped to Lake Havasu in Arizona where the bridge stands to this day, a bit of British history in the middle of the desert. The bridge that now exists, that crosses the Thames, is smooth, contemporary, practical, but it has none of the heart of its predecessors. Nevertheless, the rhyme endures, not in schoolyards only but even in time, the whisper that nothing man constructs endures.

And that’s what makes “London Bridge is Falling Down” more than a children’s song, it’s a metaphor for every empire, every system, every creation that believes itself indestructible. 

The bridge was a symbol of human pride, and a lesson that even the greatest of things send and give in to time; that silver corrodes, and gold is stolen. Every fall was a warning, and an offer as well: that rebuilding is our business. Any fall brings about a resurrection. Perhaps, this is why the song has survived till now, even though it is not a song about a bridge only. It is survival, the human spirit to begin again when all is collapsed.

The bridge has collapsed, but the song never did. And maybe that is the most accurate image of all of us;  When we fall down we manage to create something again, something better.

The Colonial Aftertaste We Never Questioned

Frankly speaking these rhymes were never ours. It was under colonial education that they were transported through British nurseries to Indian classrooms.

Dr. Kelsy writes that, we, as Indians, have been brought up on these verses, without knowing either the context or the purpose of those odd events in them. And she is correct, we did not think the truth, but the beat. We may have lost our empire to the British, but they left behind them the language lullabies, so that their history would remain singing in our ears.

Then here is the embarrassing question: Do we unknowingly teach our children to keep alive the history of some other country?  

Should We Rewrite the Rhymes?

It is recommended that India must have its own nursery rhymes, based upon its own history, not the borrowed colonial reverberations. Why not rhyme about the Indus River, Ancient India, the Salt March, the monsoons, the mango seasons,and the Chandrayaan landing, that make Indian children identify themselves with?

Since language is identity, then perhaps, our lullabies need to be more home-like. So, the next time you hear the child singing Baa Baa Black Sheep stop  because you are not only hearing a rhyme, you are listening to history that is edited, exported, risen up centuries and forgotten its wounds.

What Needs To Be Done?

Maybe the point isn’t to ban Baa Baa Black Sheep or stop kids from giggling over Humpty Dumpty. Maybe the point is to reclaim the narrative. 

For instance, if a teacher sings “London Bridge” and then explains, “This rhyme was about taxes and bridges falling because people didn’t take care of them. What’s our version today?” A parent tells “Jack and Jill” and adds “It may have started as a story about unfair rulers. How would you rewrite it if it happened in India?” That’s how history breathes again.

Why, because if we keep going, these will become a forgotten history of the people who forcefully ruled us. We must realise it is not merely repeating rhymes, we’re repeating silence, the pain, the tragedy, and a lot more which is nowhere related to us or our mother land. 

We must first ensure to know our land, its history, and everything our people went through. It might look like a small thing but honestly the impact of it is much deeper than we can ever imagine.  

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Credit:

Inspired by “Nursery Rhymes and the History Behind Them” by Dr. Atiqa Kelsy (2016, ResearchGate).

Additional insights drawn from historical folklore studies by Iona & Peter Opie, BBC Archives, Britain History blogs & research paper, and credible youtube channels.

About the Author

Kanishka, a versatile content writer and acclaimed poetess from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, combines her passion for creativity with a strong commitment to education. Beyond crafting compelling narratives, she is dedicated to enlightening readers by sharing insights and knowledge they often don’t encounter elsewhere. She has been featured in several national and international online magazines, and anthologies. Her talent and dedication to literature have earned her two national records— one for composing the longest reverse poem and another for compiling an all-female anthology that celebrates women’s voices. Her love for storytelling, philosophies, and mythologies fuels her mission to inspire and educate, shaping minds through the power of words and knowledge.