Jonathan Drews, age 10, of Oak Creek, Wis., for his question:
WHO WAS MOTHER GOOSE?
Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he. He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl, and he called for his fiddlers three. This is one of the earliest Mother Goose rhymes. It tells the story of a popular British king who lived about 200 A.D. He loved music and had a daughter who was a skilled musician.
In a graveyard in Boston, Mass., several tombstones bear the name Goose. Some say that one, marks the grave of Mother Goose. Her real name was supposedly Elizabeth Vergoose. Her daughter's husband was a printer named Thomas Fleet who in 1719 was to have published the rhymes and songs she sang to her grandchildren. No copies of the book can be found, and most scholars doubt the truth of this story.
Mother Goose is a mythical little old lady who told nursery stories and rhymes to children. She probably was not a real person.
"Mother Goose" is a direct translation from the French Mere 1'Oye, a book that was published in 1697 by Charles Perrault had the title " Histoires due Temps passe; Contes de ma Mere 1'Oye. " The translation: Stories of Long Ago; Tales of Mother Goose.
Perrault's book had eight tales including "Sleepin Beauty)" "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots." There were no rhymes. He did not invent the stories since they were already popular in his day. Perrault simply collected them.
Some of the old stories were credited to the mother of the French ruler Charlemagne. She was known to many as Goose Footed Bertha.
Robert Sambers in 1729 translated Perrault's tales into English, and then in about 1760 John Newberry, the first English publisher of children's books, brought them out in a tiny book illustrated with woodcuts and called "Mother Goose's Melody.''
Included in Newberry's book were 52 rhymes, such as "Ding Dong, Bell," "Little Tom Tucker" and ''Margery Daw." In addition, the bookhad 15 songs from Shakespeare's plays. The book became a best seller with copies flooding the bookstalls in London. In 1785 Isaiah Thomas, a publisher in Worcester, Mass., brought out an American edition.
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said "What a brave boy am I." This Mother Goose rhyme was based, on the legend that the Bishop of Glostonbury sent his steward named Jack Horner to King Henry VIII with the title deeds to 12 estates. The deeds were hidden in a Christmas pie which Jack discovered and kept. To this day, the Horner family owns the estate in Mells Park, England, described in the deeds.