Mother Goose is a character that originated in children's fiction, as the imaginary author of a collection of Frenchfairy tales and later of Englishnursery rhymes.[1] She also appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme.[2] The character also appears in a pantomime tracing its roots to 1806.[3]
The term's appearance in English dates back to the early 18th century, whenCharles Perrault's fairy tale collection,Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, was first translated into English asTales of My Mother Goose. Later a compilation of English nursery rhymes, titledMother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, helped perpetuate the name both in Britain and the United States.
Mother Goose's name was identified with English collections of stories and nursery rhymes popularised in the 17th century. English readers would already have been familiar withMother Hubbard, a stock figure whenEdmund Spenser published the satireMother Hubberd's Tale in 1590, as well as with similar fairy tales told by "Mother Bunch" (the pseudonym ofMadame d'Aulnoy)[4] in the 1690s.[5] An early mention appears in an aside in a versified French chronicle of weekly events,Jean Loret'sLa Muse Historique, collected in 1650.[6] His remark,comme un conte de la Mère Oye ("like a Mother Goose story") shows that the term was readily understood. Additional 17th-century Mother Goose/Mere l'Oye references appear in French literature in the 1620s and 1630s.[7][8][9]
In the 20th century, Katherine Elwes-Thomas theorised that the image and name "Mother Goose" or "Mère l'Oye" might be based upon ancient legends of the wife of KingRobert II of France, known as "Berthe la fileuse" ("Bertha the Spinner") orBerthe pied d'oie ("Goose-Footed Bertha" ), often described as spinning incredible tales that enraptured children.[10] Other scholars have pointed out thatCharlemagne's mother,Bertrada of Laon, came to be known as the goose-foot queen (regina pede aucae).[11] There are even sources that trace Mother Goose's origin back to the biblicalQueen of Sheba.[12] Stories of Bertha with a strange foot (goose, swan or otherwise) exist in many languages including Middle German, French, Latin and, Italian.Jacob Grimm theorised that these stories are related to the Upper German figurePerchta or Berchta (English Bertha).[13] Like the legends of "Bertha la fileuse" in France and the story of Mother Goose Berchta was associated with children, geese, and spinning or weaving,[14] although with much darker connotations.
Despite evidence to the contrary,[15] it has been stated in the United States that the original Mother Goose was theBostonian wife of Isaac Goose, either named Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665–1758) or Mary Goose (d. 1690, age 42).[16] She was reportedly the second wife of Isaac Goose (alternatively named Vergoose or Vertigoose), who brought to the marriage six children of her own to add to Isaac's ten.[17] After Isaac died, Elizabeth went to live with her eldest daughter, who had married Thomas Fleet, a publisher who lived on Pudding Lane (now Devonshire Street). According to Early, "Mother Goose" used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day, and other children swarmed to hear them. Finally, it was said, her son-in-law gathered her jingles together and printed them. No evidence of such printing has been found, and historians believe this story was concocted by Fleet's great-grandson John Fleet Eliot in 1860.[18]
Iona and Peter Opie, leading authorities on nursery lore, give no credence to either the Elwes-Thomas or the Boston suppositions. It is generally accepted that the term does not refer to any particular person.[19]
Charles Perrault, one of the initiators of theliterary fairy tale genre, published a collection of such tales in 1695 calledHistoires ou contes du temps passés, avec des moralités under the name of his son, which became better known under its subtitle ofContes de ma mère l'Oye orTales of My Mother Goose.[20] Perrault's publication marks the first authenticated starting-point for Mother Goose stories. An English translation of Perrault's collection,Robert Samber'sHistories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose, appeared in 1729 and was reprinted in America in 1786.[21]
Nursery rhymes were once believed to have been published inJohn Newbery's compilationMother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the cradle[22] published some time in London in the 1760s, but the first edition was probably published in 1780 or 1781 by Thomas Carnan, Newbery's stepson and successor. Although this edition was registered with theStationers' Company in 1780, no copy has ever been confirmed, and the earliest surviving edition is dated 1784.[23] The name "Mother Goose" has been associated in the English-speaking world with children's poetry ever since.[24]
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In addition to being the purported author of nursery rhymes, Mother Goose is herself the title character in onerecorded by the Opies, only the first verse of which figures in later editions of their book.[25] Titled "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg", this verse prefaced a 15-stanza poem that rambled through a variety of adventures involving not only the egg but also Mother Goose's son Jack. There exists an illustrated chapbook omitting their opening stanza that dates from the 1820s[26] and another version was recorded byJ. O. Halliwell in hisThe Nursery Rhymes of England (1842).[27] Other shorter versions were also recorded later.[28]
All of them, however, were dependent on a very successfulpantomime first performed in London in 1806, and it is only by reference to its script that the unexplained gaps in the poem's narration are made clear.[3] The pantomime, staged atCovent Garden during the Christmas season, was the work ofThomas John Dibdin and its title,Harlequin and Mother Goose, or The Golden Egg, signals how it combines theCommedia dell'arte tradition and other folk elements with fable – in this case "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs".[29] The stage version became a vehicle for the clownJoseph Grimaldi, who played the part of Avaro, but there was also a shorter script for shadow pantomime which allowed special effects of a different kind.[30]
Special effects were needed since the folk elements in the story made awitch-figure of Mother Goose. In reference to this, and especially the opening stanza, illustrations of Mother Goose began depicting her as an old lady with a strong chin who wears a tall pointed hat and flies astride a goose.[11] Ryoji Tsurumi has commented on the folk aspects of this figure in his monograph on the play.[31] In the first scene, the stage directions show her raising a storm and, for the first time onstage, flying a gander – and she later raises a ghost in a macabre churchyard scene. These elements contrast with others from theharlequinade tradition in which the old miser Avaro transforms into Pantaloon, while the young lovers Colin and Colinette become Harlequin and Columbine.
A new Mother Goose pantomime was written for the comedianDan Leno byJ. Hickory Wood andArthur Collins for performances atTheatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1902.[32] This had a different story line in which the poor but happy Mother Goose is tempted with wealth by the Devil.[33] This was the ancestor of all the pantomimes of that title that followed, adaptations of which continue to appear.[34] PlaywrightJohn J. McNally adapted the libretto by Wood and Collins for the 1903Broadway musicalMother Goose which starred comedianJoseph Cawthorn in the title role. It used music by composerFrederick Solomon and lyrics byGeorge V. Hobart.[35]
Because nursery rhymes are usually referred to as Mother Goose songs in the US,[36] however, children's entertainments in which a medley of nursery characters are introduced to sing their rhymes often introduced her name into American titles. Early 20th century examples of these includeA dream of Mother Goose and other entertainments by J. C. Marchant and S. J. Mayhew (Boston, 1908);[37]Miss Muffet Lost and Found : a Mother Goose play by Katharine C. Baker (Chicago, 1915);[38]The Modern Mother Goose: a play in three acts by Helen Hamilton (Chicago, 1916);[39] and the up-to-the-momentThe Strike Mother Goose Settled by Evelyn Hoxie (Franklin Ohio and Denver Colorado, 1922).[40]
In the United States there is a granite statue of a flying Mother Goose byFrederick Roth at the entrance toRumsey Playfield in New York'sCentral Park.[41] Installed in 1938, it has several other nursery rhyme characters carved into its sides.[42] On a smaller scale, there isRichard Henry Recchia's contemporary bronze rotating statue in theRockport, Massachusetts, public library. There Mother Goose is depicted telling the tales associated with her to two small children, with twelve reliefs illustrating such stories about its round base.[43]
Mother Goose public domain audiobook atLibriVox| International | |
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