Mystical Shires
Nursery Rhymes
Many nursery rhymes have been argued to have hidden meanings and origins. John Bellenden Ker (1765–1842), for example, wrote four volumes arguing that English nursery rhymes were actually written in 'Low Saxon', a hypothetical early form of Dutch. He then 'translated' them back into English, revealing in particular a strong tendency to anti-clericalism. Many of the ideas about the links between rhymes and historical people, or events, can be traced back to Katherine Elwes's book, The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930), in which she linked famous nursery-rhyme characters with real people, on little or no evidence. She assumed that children's songs were a peculiar form of coded historical narrative, propaganda or covert protest, and rarely considered that they could have been written simply for entertainment.
There is a local belief that the rhyme records events in the village of Kilmersdon in Somerset in 1697. When a local spinster became pregnant, the putative father is said to have died from a rock fall and the woman died in childbirth soon after.
So we went to Kimersdon to investigate.
On the way up “The Hill” there are a series of stone markers.
At the to of “The Hill” there is a “Well” and the local Primary School.
While the true origins of the rhyme are unknown there are several theories. As is common with nursery rhyme exegesis, complicated metaphors are often said to exist within the lyrics of Jack and Jill. Most explanations post-date the first publication of the rhyme and have no
corroborating evidence. These include the suggestion by S. Baring-Gould in the 19th century that the events were a version of the story told in the 13th-century Prose Edda Gylfaginning written by Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson, who stated that in Norse mythology, Hjúki and Bil, brother and sister (respectively), were taken up from the earth by the moon (personified as the god Máni) as they were fetching water from the well called Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the cask called Saegr and the pole called Simul.
Around 1835 John Bellenden Ker suggested that Jack and Jill were two priests, and this was enlarged by Katherine Elwes in 1930 to indicate that Jack represented Cardinal Wolsey (c.1471–1530); and Jill was Bishop Tarbes, who negotiated the marriage of Mary Tudor to the French king in 1514.
It has also been suggested that the rhyme records the attempt by King Charles I to reform the taxes on liquid measures. He was blocked by Parliament, so subsequently ordered that the volume of a Jack (1/2 pint) be reduced, but the tax remained the same. This meant that he still received more tax, despite Parliament's veto. Hence "Jack fell down and broke his crown" (many pint glasses in the UK still have a line marking the 1/2 pint level with a crown above it) "and Jill came tumbling after". The reference to "Jill" (actually a "gill", or 1/4 pint) is said to reflect that the gill dropped in volume as a consequence.
The suggestion has also been made that Jack and Jill represent Louis XVI of France, who was deposed and beheaded in 1793 (lost his crown), and his Queen, Marie Antoinette (who came tumbling after), a theory made difficult by the fact that the earliest printing of the rhyme pre-dates those events.