Mother Goose

This article is about the fairy-tale character. For other uses, see Mother Goose (disambiguation).

The opening verse of "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg", from an 1860s chapbook

Mother Goose is a character that originated in children's fiction, as the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery 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, when Charles Perrault's fairy tale collection, Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, was first translated into English as Tales of My Mother Goose. Later a compilation of English nursery rhymes, titled Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, helped perpetuate the name both in Britain and the United States.

  1. ^ Macmillan Dictionary for Students Macmillan, Pan Ltd. (1981), p. 663. Retrieved 2010-7-15.
  2. ^ See, for instance, item 364 in Peter and Iona Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 1997.
  3. ^ Jeri Studebaker, Breaking the Mother Goose Code, Moon Books 2015, Chapter 6