“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son stole a pig and away he run; the pig got loose and killed a goose, and they put old Tom in the calaboose.”
That is a nursery rhyme that I remember learning among other favorites, such as “Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow…” and “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.”
And though Nursery Rhymes are still popular today, they don’t seem to carry the importance they once did in our children’s literature.
I learned the musical verses by heart from my Uncle Sidney Stanton Rice Jr., who was quite the literary figure of our clan during the early 1950s.
Uncle Junior (or June, as we affectionately called him) had a unique charm when it came to captivating the imaginations of children. We all gathered around him at the supper table to listen to his made-up stories and fictional accounts of his life.
Sadly, my uncle died young from an apparent heart attack when he was just in his late 30s. It was the first time I’d experienced the loss of a family member. It hurt to the bone, and I still miss him. I often think of my uncle when I’m making a pot of vegetable soup or fixing myself a bologna sandwich with cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise, a treat he jokingly called “a meal within itself.”
I can still hear my uncle’s voice whenever someone recites a nursery rhyme in a kindergarten class or when I relate the colorful verses to the children of our extended family.
I must have repeated those poems hundreds of times to each of my nephews when they were barely toddlers. I still believe that the verses have a traditional value that is often missing in the nation’s elementary school curriculums.
Children back in my day developed their imaginations around those old sayings of the mysterious Mother Goose. Perhaps she was a real person, or perhaps not. No one really seems to know for sure.
Over the past century, various people have tried to trace the Mother Goose rhymes back to their original source in order to discover the truth about the author.
Was there really a woman known as Mother Goose who told stories and recited rhymes for children?
The results of all the research seems to indicate there was more than one person who wore the mysterious moniker of the actual Mother Goose persona.
Nevertheless, Mother Goose is often cited as the creator of the seemingly countless children’s stories that have been passed down through oral tradition and published over the centuries.
The world-famous figure of Mother Goose may even date back to the 10th century in Europe, according to sources printed on the Internet, which is also contained in the libraries of southern France.
Still, no one knows who the real Mother Goose was; probably she didn’t exist at all, at least not as the full-figured female author generally credited with inventing the tales, songs, and rhymes that we know today.
More than likely, Mother Goose was a reference to any farmingwomen who happened to raise geese, chicks, ducks, and other barnyard fowl, and who might have cared for children and collected them around her flocks to tell tales.
Sometimes, she is portrayed merely as a goose herself, a depiction of many anthropomorphic animals that entertain modern children in books and on TV.
Even so, Mother Goose is an iconic figure in children’s literature, one that is associated with fairy tales and nursery rhymes, both of which often serve as an excellent way to teach small children about the refinements of language—and simultaneously help them to learn to memorize, a practice that is often neglected in 21st century public schools.
At any rate, Mother Goose is the name given to an archetypal country woman, although she might even have been a man, who taught us how to connect with words.
At any rate, literature of the nursery is well-nigh universal. Fortunate is the child who early catches a glimpse of the world larger than his own through some acquaintance of a songperhaps from the other side of the earth.
The English tongue is full of robust and enduring metaphors. Rooted in poetry it is innately attuned and suited for a child’s imagination and concept of the world.
Sense and nonsense exist together in a sweet reasonable confluence of images and symbols.
Music is the first appeal of Mother Goose, often capturing the child’s heartbeat and other basic rhythms of life. Variety of rhyme and meter continually surprise the ear, the pace changing as quickly as the scene and cast of characters. What mirth and merrymaking in “Hey diddle, diddle, / the cat in the fiddle…” and “Peter, Peter pumpkin-eater / had a wife and couldn’t keepher…”
What a parade and parable of the workaday world: the farmer, the dairy maid, the baker, and the butcher, tinker, tailer, barber,and smith. Plus, the array of companionable animals: dogs and cats, sheep, cows, donkeys, hens, and geese—even mice with and without tails.
Reading and reciting songs and poems to children will probably never be the same again. There’s just not enough family time to get it done. And yet, we hate to see all that delight disappear from our children’s faces—disappear in an age that now is lit by lightning, the iPad, and cellphones.
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Top o’ the morning!