The curious origins of a famous rhyme – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle

Humpty Dumpty was originally a drink, then he became an egg in a plant nursery rhyme. Quite how this happened, nobody seems to know, but it did. The name 'Humpty-dumpty' was given to a drinkable of boiled ale and brandy in 1698, and that's only the first known reference in print – the name is probably considerably older. By 1785, as Francis Grose recorded in his fascinating collection of contemporary slang, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the rhyming term had been applied to people, and was used specifically to describe a 'short, dumpy, hump-shouldered person' and, by extension, a clumsy person. But the words 'Humpty-Dumpty' mean 1 thing and one matter lone to most readers: an egg in the famous plant nursery rhyme which begins, 'Humpty Dumpty saturday on a wall'. What is the meaning of this little rhyme, and what are its origins?

First, earlier we effort an analysis of this curious nursery rhyme, hither's a reminder of the words:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the male monarch'south horses and all the king'due south men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

This rhyme didn't appear until the early nineteenth century, according to Iona and Peter Opie in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford Dictionary of Nusery Rhymes) , when it was included in a manuscript that was mysteriously added to a printed 1803 re-create of Female parent Goose'south Melody. Since the Opies compiled their lexicon in the early 1950s, the rhyme has been traced back to an before source, Samuel Arnold's 1797 piece of work Juvenile Amusements:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great autumn.
Iv-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.

According to the Opies, in that location was a girls' game called Humpty Dumpty, which was pop in America and involved the players sitting downwardly and holding their skirts, before throwing themselves backwards, with the aim beingness to recover their balance without letting go of their skirts. The idea of regaining i's rest later on falling clearly suggests a link with the nursery rhyme, and Lina Eckenstein, in Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes (1906), surmised that the game predated the rhyme. Was the nursery rhyme of 'Humpty Dumpty', like 'Ring-a-Ring o' Roses', designed to accompany a children's game?

The Opies add their ain cautious speculation to the argue, suggesting that the rhyme may have originally been about non literal eggs, but children playing a game similar to the ane described in nineteenth-century American accounts. 'Eggs do not sit on walls', the Opies helpfully point out; 'only the verse becomes intelligible if it describes human beings who are personating eggs.'

By the time Lewis Carroll created his nonsense mirror-world of Through the Looking-Glass (1871), the rhyme had go firmly established – like the earlier rhyme nigh Tweedledum and Tweedledee – and Carroll's looking-glass fantasy world took the character and gave him a new lease of life as a rather uppity egg who uses words still he wishes to, without worrying that nobody else volition empathise him. In John Tenniel's accompanying illustration, Humpty Dumpty is conspicuously an egg – admitting ane in dress – and so by the 1870s the thought that the nursery rhyme was about an actual egg must have been solidly entrenched. Information technology's possible that the plant nursery rhyme was supposed to be a riddle, to which 'egg' was the answer, thus explaining why the male monarch's horses and the king'due south men couldn't put Humpty together once again.

But the truth is, nosotros but don't know for certain. What seems near likely is that the rhyme may have been sung as an accompaniment to the nineteenth-century game outlined above. In the various versions of 'Humpty Dumpty' in circulation, he is sometimes sitting on a wall but sometimes elsewhere: in a 'beck', for instance (a brook or stream, that is). So the link with the game may non exist as far-fetched as some of the other interpretations offered.

What does seem unlikely is the persistent myth that Humpty Dumpty was the name of a cannon used in the English Civil War. During the 1648 siege of Colchester, the story goes, the Royalist cannon nicknamed Humpty Dumpty was shot off a wall past Parliamentarian forces. Unfortunately, even if a Royalist cannon was nicknamed Humpty Dumpty (and there is no prove for this), that wouldn't prove the story about the fallen cannon was true. All it would bear witness is that we could add cannons to the list of other things (brandy drinks, clumsy people, eggs) which accept been linked with the words 'Humpty Dumpty'. In the last analysis, the rhyme's true origins and significant remain unknown, though nosotros would be tentatively inclined to run into the verse as a song sung by children while playing a game. State of war, no; games, maybe.

And now, time for some ale and a large brandy.

Discover the stories backside more than classic nursery rhymes with our analysis of 'London Bridge is Falling Down', our commentary on the Little Bo Peep rhyme, and our postal service delving into the history of the 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' nursery rhyme.

The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough Academy. He is the writer of, amongst others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Peachy War, The Waste product Country and the Modernist Long Poem.

Epitome: Illustration of Humpty Dumpty by William Wallace Denslow (1902), via Wikimedia Commons.