I woke up this morning thinking about Humpty Dumpty. I didn’t dream about him, although I’m not entirely sure Humpty if of the male persuasion. The nursery rhyme never tells us. Mother Goose didn’t let on either.
And, when we take the time, as we all do, to picture Humpty in our heads, what do we see? Most of us see the big egg-like creature with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, dressed in a little suit with a tie, sitting there all spindly-legged on that wall.
However, the only “identifier” in the poem is the name. Nowhere does it call Humpty an egg.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Then why do we waste a perfectly good egg on this rhyme?
We can thank Lewis Carroll actually.
Yeppers. That Lewis Carroll, the author ‘Alice in Wonderland’. More to the point, we can thank his 1872 novel ‘Through the Looking-Glass’.
There, in the sixth chapter of that book, we see the title ‘Humpty Dumpty’. As far as we know, it is here that Humpty first appeared as that good old egg.
“However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty Dumpty himself. ‘It can’t be anybody else!’ she said to herself. ‘I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.'”
– Extract from ‘Through the Looking Glass’, Lewis Carroll.
I don’t know why Mr. Carroll would do such a thing. But he came up with a lot of colorful ideas, including the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare.
We’ll never know about Carroll’s reason, but that still brings us back to the original mystery of Humpty. Well. According to several war historians, the original Humpty Dumpty was — and this makes sense — a cannon.
Yes. A large cannon which is believed to have been used in English Civil War (1642-1649). And during that war, specifically, in the 1648 Siege of Colchester.
These historians tell us that the rhyme came about because Colchester was under siege. During the attack, an enemy cannon fired from the attacking side and managed to destroy the wall ‘Humpty Dumpty’ was positioned on, near St. Mary’s Church. Hence, Humpty Dumpty came tumbling down.
The cannon smashed to pieces. Due to its massive size, none of the king’s horses and none of the king’s men were able to put it back together again. As we already know.
A broken cannon, and not a creepy egg.
Now back to its gender. I cannot determine if cannons are boys or girls, like boats, or cars. In fact, if you Google the word “sex” or “gender” along with “cannon” you will find some spectacular details about certain humans here on this planet of ours. So for now, Humpty Dumpty is a non-binary gendered cannon.
All of this reminds me of our current situation with all the news swirling around in our world. A story gone wrong. Our situation differs slightly, in that there are teams of people, hired by individuals from “above” — to generate misinformation, false stories, rumors, and more. Most of these are designed to instill fear in the masses, and to widen gaps between us, between our beliefs.
It then becomes our job, as people of sound mind, to negotiate these falsities. We should never spread them, and if at all possible, we should do our best to disprove and dispel them. This can be challenging, as many people only hear what they want to hear, and have no interest in education, or the act of considering new ideas.
After all. Humpty Dumpty has been an egg for a long time, no thanks to the truth.
==========
“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.”
― Aristotle
===========
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
― Margaret Mead
==========
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
― Aristotle
==========
