5 Nursery Rhymes and their Dark Origins

4. Humpty Dumpty

When we think of Humpty Dumpty, the first thing you think of is an egg-like person just sitting on a wall and fell breaking its shell. But that was the workings of an illustration in a book from 1871 by Lewis Caroll called “Through the Looking-Glass”.

But the Humpty Dumpty rhyme is older than the book and the egg was never referenced in the rhyme at all. Rather than an egg, Humpty Dumpty was a weapon. A cannon to be precise. A cannon owned by the supporters of King Charles I which was used to gain control over the city of Colchester during the English Civil War.

So during the war, the cannon, Humpty Dumpty was stationed on a church tower. The tower got destroyed by the opposing party with a barrage of canonballs and sent Humpty Dumpty into the marshland below.

When they retrieved the cannon however it was beyond repair. So they made a rhyme out of it which the full version goes like this:

In sixteen hundred and forty-eight
When England suffered pains of state

The Roundheads laid siege to Colchester town
Where the King’s men still fought for the crown.

There one-eyed Thompson stood on the wall
A gunner with the deadliest aim of all

From St Mary’s tower the cannon he fired
Humpty Dumpty was his name.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

But for the nursery rhyme, only the last 4 sentences remained.