Did You Know? Mother Goose

Yesterday, I chatted a little with the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, so today, I thought it would be fun to find out a little about Mother Goose. So that's what this week's Did You Know? is about. Without further ado, here are this week's facts.

Did You Know...

• The earliest written version of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe appeared in 1794?
• In the earlier versions, the old lady whipped her children soundly and sent them to bed? Ouch!
• Some speculation, although no hard proof, that the identity of the old woman in the rhyme is Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II? She had eight children.
• In England, Mother Goose was a generic term to describe a country woman?
• No specific writer has been identified as the creator of the Mother Goose nursery rhymes?
• The first tale attributed to Mother Goose appeared as early as 1650?
•  Some scholars believed that Mother Goose lived in Boston in the late 1600's and was the wife of Isaac Goose? This line of thought is generally discounted today.
• In 1695, Charles Perrault published a collection of Mother Goose fairy tales? These were the first collection of fairy tales attributed to Mother Goose.
• In 1791 John Newbery published a book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes? This became the prevailing Mother Goose association until recently.

Fun stuff. Now here's a little video from Sesame Street in which Kermit the Frog meets the old woman and a couple of other people in her neighborhood.