The Democratic advocate., 1883-05-26
Origin of Some Nursery Rhymes.

"Cinderella or the Glass Slipper" is
very old story. Thousands of years ago 1t
was told to boys and girls. The original
read that an eagle stole the slipper OF
very pretty Egyptian lady and bore it off;
The eagle dropped it, and some one carried
it to the King who made it known all over
the kingdom that he would marry the lady
whose tiny foot it would fit. And so Gin
derella, the cinder-girl, became Queen. In
France, Germany and this country the story
has taken several shapes, and has already
been favorite.
eLittle Jack Horner" has the following
history: In England, in the reign of Henry
VIII. there lived Mr.. Horner. Henry,
the King, wished to tear down all the fine
monasteries and abbeys of England, sell
their lands and pocket the money. This
Mr. Horner was butler, or something, to
an old abbot who thought he would gain
favor with Henry by giving him twelve of
his very best and richest monasteries. So
the abbot sent deeds of them to the King
by this John Horner. But Horner thought,
as he "sat in the corner Of the carriage on
his way to the King, that he would see
what all these great papers which he was
carrying meant. "He put in his thumb
and pulled out a plum i. e., he opened
and read the deeds, put the one for the
largest piece of land in his own pocket,
gave the rest to the King at London, and
came home and told his master that Henry
Will, for his fidelity, had made him a
present of one of the largest tracts of land.
blue Beard" too, is very old He is
supposed to be Giles Delaval, Lord Of Rails,
and was Marshal of France in 1929.
Jack. the Giant-killer," came from
India. He breaks forth in all sorts of
doings all over the story-books of the
young. And 50 of Jack and the Bean
stalk"
"Babes in the Woods is very touch
inc story. | think the origin of this
may be considered very, very old ballad,
which tells of Richard III. numbering his
own dear little nephews.
The story of Little Red Riding Hood
is found in the German, but not exactly as
we tell it in English.
The Germans have great variety OF
voung-folk-lore, or stories for little ones.
''Mother Goose was real person. She
lived in Boston. Her daughter Elizabeth
married the printer, Tom Fleet, who gath
cred up the nursery melodies of bis mother
in-law and published them.
must now tell you the meaning OF an
old nursery rhyme: -Four and twenty
blackbirds made into a pie are the four
and-twenty hours of the day. The pie
is the space between the earth and the sky
the fat-looking ground being the bottom
crust, the birds in between, and the sky
being the concave top crust. ''When the
pie was opened, l. e., when day began to
break, ''The birds began to sing i. e.,
the hours to begin merrily. ''The king in
the parlor counting ont money the king
is the sun, the monarch of the day. There
he is enthroned in the sky. He is said to
be counting out money, because the sun
shine is goId-color; see how he counts it
out" filings it about him, the beautiful
golden sunshine. The queen upstairs
eating bread and honey" Of course, if
the king is the sun, the queen is the moon.
'The maid in the garden, hanging out
clothes The maid" is Aurora, the god
dess. not of the day, but Of the dawn.
Now "up jumped little bird and nipped
off her nose" The little bird who did
this ungallant thing is, of course, the first
hour of the day, for Aurora, or dawn,
disappears as soon as the king, or sun,
arises-,St. Nicholas.