The Annotated Mother Goose: With an Introduction and Notes

by William S. Baring-Gould

Book by Baring-Gould, William

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Childrens, Fairy Tales, Reference, Nursery Rhymes, Nonfiction

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

William Stuart Baring-Gould (1913–1967) was a noted Sherlock Holmes scholar, best known as the author of the influential 1962 fictional biography, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A life of the world's first consulting detective.

He was creative director of Time magazine's circulation and corporate education departments from 1937 until his death. His paternal grandfather was Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould.

Reviews

[Peter Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found my copy of this book in a free pile on College Street in Burlington. I try not to pick up books from the street because I already have plenty of unread books at home, but I have wanted to read The Annotated Mother Goose for a long time.

Here is the first rhyme in the book:

Little Robin red breast
Sitting on a pole,
Niddle, Noddle,
Went his head,
And Poop went his hole.

A unexpected beginning!

When I was a child we owned the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Peter and Iona Opie. It contained over 800 rhymes. It is curious that the Annotated Mother Goose is also edited by a married couple. I read the book more than once and because nursery rhymes are designed to be catchy, I learned some of them. When my daughter Alice was born I bought a copy of the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book and worked on memorizing rhymes as I changed her diapers. I had the book next to her changing table. A few years later, when I became a storyteller I used some of the rhymes in my shows. Now I do a weekly story hour at the Family Room in Burlington. We do songs, nursery rhymes and I read a book. I have a list of songs and rhymes that I expand from time to time.


Sometimes at the Family Room I add to traditional rhymes.

The original:

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock stuck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory, dock.

Here is what I have added:

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck two,
The mouse said, “Where’s my shoe?”
Hickory dickory dock.

The clock struck three,
The mouse said “Whee!”

The clock struck four
The mouse shut the door.

The clock struck five,
The mouse said “I’m alive!”

I could continue to ten and beyond but five seems to be enough.


Some of the rhymes are horrific:

Baby, baby naughty baby,
Hush you squalling thing I say,
Peace this moment, peace or maybe,
Boneparte will pass this way.

Baby, baby he’s a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen Steeple,
And he breakfasts, dines, rely on’t,
Every day on naughty people.

Baby, baby if he hears you,
As he gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once he’ll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.

And he’ll beat you, beat you , beat you,
And he’ll beat you all to pap,
And he’ll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap, snap.


Not a rhyme I will be reciting at the Family Room or anywhere else!

There are also games described that are no longer common.

“A dingle doosey (or dousie),” wrote j. Mactaggart in his Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824) “is a piece of wood burned red at one end as a toy for children. The mother will whirl the the ignited stick very fast, when the eye, by following it, seems to see a beautiful red circle. “

This is not an entertainment most childcare experts would recommend!

The causal racism and sexism in both the rhymes and the commentary is startling, even though it was written in 1962.

I learned a lot about the origins and sources for many common rhymes. It reaffirmed that there is no evidence that Ring Around the Rosie is about the plague. At the Family Room we do this rhyme which is not in the Annotated Mother Goose:

The Cows are in the Meadow,
Eating buttercups,
Thunder, lightning,
We all jump up.

Nursery rhymes are part of an every changing and evolving oral tradition. Now the internet has accelerated the rate of change. Who knows where it will end!

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My two-year-old niece has memorized "Diddle-Diddle Dumpling My Son John," which is but one more way she charms us.

I like the notes in this collection which are ridiculous and serious:

"Tinkers--itinerant menders of pots and pans--were often gypsies, who trad. had a bad reputation for honesty."
"It seems that men, not necessarily gentleman, preferred blondes many years...This lass indicates she has had the misfortune to be born a brunette."
"Originally, 'Jack Pratt'--a 16th and 17th c. name for a dwarf."

Etc!

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably better as a reference than reading straight through as I did. But a super interesting read with a lot of funny little details about everybody's favorite rhymes.

[erl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun exploration of nursery rhymes. I was surprised to learn some of them are more than 1000 years old. The annotations clarify archaic words and confirm or refute historic references. Many of the rhymes I’d been told were about Henry VIII probably aren’t. But “Hey Diddle Diddle” turns out to be about Elizabeth I and her court. The volume is chock full of delightful illustrations by the likes of Arthur Rackham and Kate Greenaway. I found the newer rhymes far less interesting than the old ones, which were not written specifically for children. Generally very entertaining and sometimes enlightening.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nursery Rhymes were blunter back in the day. My young grandsons fall to the floor laughing when I recite "Little Robin Redbreast sat on a pole. Niddle noddle went his head and poop went his hole."

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though it’s entirely impossible to have a truly complete collection of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, this annotated collection by the Baring-Goulds is an admirable attempt. It holds an astounding number of nursery rhymes, both familiar and more obscure, which I found rather delightful to peruse. Discovering new rhymes and recollecting old ones seems to be the entire point of the collection, since the authors admit that they omitted some of the most commonplace pieces because they had no real place among “Mother Goose nursery rhymes” (which are arguably a subset of their own within children’s literature) as well as the more obscure and oddly placed poems that were often added by publishers to pad collections. This may seem like an oversight, since obscurity and commonality have their place in collections with even a modicum of academic tone, but the collection is already large enough and there are other sources for this material. My only real complaint about this volume is that their annotations left me slightly disappointed. The poems were in no sense completely annotated, since some pieces had no accompanying text at all, and the authors tended to ramble on about various topics which seemed to have very little bearing on many of the poems in question. Once I stopped reading the annotations, though, I regained my interest in the book and focused on simply enjoying the nursery rhymes themselves - with only quick jaunts to the margins if I felt particularly inquisitive about specific poems. Since this collection was published some time ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a more modernized (and complete) academic Mother Goose collection, which I shall have to seek out for my own library.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachel brought me this book, a poor cast off from the Tewksbury Public Library. The introduction was worth the cost. We were laughing riotously in bed at the both the inappropriateness of some of the old rhymes and the Victorian, pearl-clutching responses to them. Having read into the book a bit, I have appreciated some of the folk wisdom, explained in the annotations, which has included the Christian names once given to birds, and thoughts on what hickory, dickery might have meant. If this looks like great fun to you, it probably is.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as interesting as hoped for, no fault of the author ... the nature of these nursery rhymes is their origins are unknown, so can't really be explicated, other than by conjecture or the reporting of other people's conjectures. (The book equivalent of trying to learn something at a party, where guests keep whispering "well I heard ...", when you'd really rather have the truth).

So ultimately stopped quite early and returned it to the library.

Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun look at the history of nursery rhymes, lullabies, and other Mother Goose esque items. I learned a lot, and was blown away by the fact that Ring Around the Rosie is actually not a plague rhyme!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun to read- fascinating tidbits of history & cross-referencing various old rhymes. This is one I'm sure I'll refer to many times

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’d think that three hundred fifty pages of nursery rhymes would be a quick, breezy read. But not so. This book takes a bit of work and stamina to drive through it. It becomes a slog.

Part of this I blame on the layout. The annotations are often on a different page than the rhymes. So this makes for a lot of back and forth between pages, which is compounded by the book being rather oversized. So each reading session becomes of a tussle with a book that’s almost too big to hold in your hands.

Although it’s not clear in the introduction, this is an annotated version of a number of books that appeared over the past couple centuries. And what it lacks in ease of use, it makes up for in comprehensiveness. It includes songs, mnemonics, folk wisdoms, street cries, charms, etc., etc.

Each page basically has two columns, so this is in really more like a 700-page book if you are reading the notes. And it’s packed. All the classics are here. But also some things that you would not call Mother Goose like the month mnemonic, the Twelve Days of Christmas, folky rhymes like “knee high by the Fourth of July,” etc. As the book explains (at the end), it is primarily focused on orally transmitted rhymes and poems. That does give a unifying element to the book around the sound of poetry.

An index of subject matter would have been tremendously valuable. In what would otherwise be a definitive edition, this is a near-fatal flaw.

But overall it is a very good collection. But I give the edge to the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book.

[Christy Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. No awards
2. All grades
3. This 350 page collection of nursery rhymes contains classic black and white illustrations from Caldecott, Greenaway, and Rackham, among others. It not only contains the classic Mother Goose, but includes poetry, lullabies, love songs, and tongue twisters from yesteryear. Foot notes, explanations, and introductions are provided throughout the whole collection.
4. Although the illustrations are sparse, they are classic and beautiful. A small child might not necessarily be drawn to the book because of the hefty amount of text, unless the reader is very animated. This collection is very interesting, however, and much can be learned about all of these rhymes, riddles, and lullabies, through the detailed notes.
5. Phonemic and phonological awareness lessons could be used with this collection for the younger grades. Children in the older grades throughout college could use the book in both History and ELA lessons.

[Dottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mother Goose Rhymes are sort of a hobby reading sideline for me. I love the tales behind the tales.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

We never read about "Little Robin Redbreast / Sitting on a pole ... " as children.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nursery rhymes are not for kids. Most of them were written as polital slogans.

[A. Kuhlii · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of information about the folk and publication history of Mother Goose rhymes plus lesser known rhymes, songs and riddles.

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, although the cattiness has dated somewhat -- but unfinished because a little goes a long way.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hb VG. PROTECTED JACKET.

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting notes about what stuff refers too.