No one knows who Mother Goose was. Not really, even though there has been a lot of speculation over the centuries. One thing is certain, it wasn’t some barnyard animal in a bonnet, negotiating a pen in her webbed feet.
But whoever was behind the beak got started a long time ago. The first book of Mother Goose Rhymes was published in 1697 — but many of the rhymes are much older than that. I’ve seen dates starting anywhere from 1609 onward. That’s more than 400 long years ago. I don’t think the poems are as popular today as they used to be. Now we have things like “Wheels on the Bus” and some chanting about a “Baby Shark.”
But there was a time when Mother Goose ruled, in all her blood, gore, doom and gloom. Yes, many of the rhymes were based on Mary I of England. She is also known as “Bloody Mary” — and not the kind with vodka and a celery stick. The children’s tales reflected some of Mary’s outrageous behavior.
For instance, one of my personal favorites, was Three Blind Mice. To recap, just for nostalgia’s sake:
Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?
This one used to charge me up. I think it had to do with the fact that it had mice in the story. And I’ve loved mice ever since I was a kid. But I must not have paid attention to anything after line three.
Some say it referred directly to Queen Mary I of England blinding and executing three Protestant bishops — showing off, once again — her deadly temper when people tried to challenge her. Sounds a little familiar.
But if you put away all the historical innuendos, and put on your “Tom Foolery” glasses, they are great little tales. With tails. Like those mice, bonded together by their blindness. They were probably at some support meeting somewhere, or maybe they met when they were shopping at the Sunglasses Store. Who knows. At any rate, they decided, that collectively, they could bumfuzzle the Farmer’s Wife, by running crazy around her feet. Then, when she was all flustered, they would take the cheese. ( Please refer to The Farmer in the Dell, line 35, where “The Mice Take the Cheese” ). Yes, that was the big plan until the farmer’s wife, who has a name I might add. It is Wanda. Anyway. Wanda goes to get the broom from the utility closet to swat at the mice. But, once again, SOMEONE didn’t put it back where it belonged. ( Again, please reference the farmer. ). Being a resourceful woman, Wanda picks up the carving knife where she had been hacking away at a block of cheese. She takes one big swing toward the floor, and those mice who were all in a row, pushing the cheese wedge back toward their hole in the wall. And with that might swat, those little blind mice lost their tales in one fell swoop. Of course, it hurt like a mother, they dropped the cheese and, sorry for the expression, high-tailed it out of there. Wanda felt horrible, and to make matters worse, she still couldn’t find the broom to sweep up the mess. She happened upon it later, in the living room, standing straight up on its own. She later found photos on the farmer’s phone, selfies, of him taking part in the absurd “stand up your broom day.”
So. There you have The Three Blind Mice.
We better not get me started on the other rhymes, like Sing a Song of Sixpence, and those two dozen blackbirds baked in a pie. I’m no Martha Stewart, but I know a thing or two about Crows, who I love almost as much as Mice.
Which leads me to the moral of the story, if there is one.
Here, we’ve seen two entirely different sagas emerge from the very same event. Yes, two these renditions could not be further from one another. The first about the execution of bishops. The second, well, rambunctious rodents, at best.
Isn’t that our world today? We have one actual event, and two entirely different accounts of that event? And while one might be quite accurate in its description, and the other something from a nursery-rhyme-gone-wrong, there they are, standing next to one another. With half of the population believing the nonsensical version.
All I can hope for is a better goose, to hand us the right book.
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Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.
— Mark Twain
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Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
— Mahatma Gandhi
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