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.
My antiquated Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme book has certainly seen better days, that's for sure. My mother read it to me as a child, I to my son, and now I read it to my grandchildren. I even used nursery rhymes as a teaching tool for children's creative dramatic classes. I never gave much thought about WHO or WHAT Humpty Dumpty really was.
"Humpty Dumpty" was 18th Century slang for a short, clumsy person. But, the Humpty Dumpty in the nursery rhyme may not have been a who, it may have been a what reflecting an event in English history.
Humpty Dumpty was the nick-name for a huge canon mounted on a wall surrounding St. Mary's Wall Church in Colchester, England. It was meant to provide protection for the Parliamentarian stronghold of Colchester which was in control of the Royalists during the English Civil War (1642-1649). A shot from a Parliamentary canon damaged the wall causing the canon to fall to the ground. Thus comes the phrase "all the king's men" (the Royalists) who attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty to another part of the wall. Even with the help of "all the king's horses" the task of raising Humpty Dumpty failed. Colchester fell to the Parliamentarians after a siege lasting eleven weeks.
I still like the image of Humpty Dumpty as being a big happy pudgy egg sitting on a wall best !
Bethany's Grammakins
