Notes

Humpty Dumpty is actually a riddle. The question is, What is Humpty Dumpty?.... The answer is... an egg!

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Jessie Prince wrote: "This rhyme is telling the story of the death of King Harold at the hands of William the Conqueror in 1066. I know it wouldn't have been written down then but town criers and travelling bards would make up the rhymes so as to remember the news to pass around to people."

Petranilla wrote: "I was told its about the Ottoman Empire! Great Britain 'all the king's horses...' tried to keep it together so that Russia and other countries at that time wouldn't get parts of it!"

Comments

Here's a variation of this rhyme as found in A History of Nursery Rhymes (1899) by Percy B. Green:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Three score men, and three score more,
Cannot make Humpty Dumpty as before again.

The version below is similar to the one above. It's from The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897). This variation actually rhymes:

Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Three score men and three score more
Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.

Here's another variation of Humpty Dumpty from Harry's Ladder to Learning (1850):

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men,
Could set Humpty Dumpty up again.

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1st mp3 by Lisa Yannucci.

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2nd mp3 by Phil Chenevert.

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3rd mp3 performed by 17 talented university student musicians at California State University-Stanislaus in 2007. The musical score the recording is based on comes from Our Old Nursery Rhymes (1911) arranged by Alfred Moffat.

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Thanks and Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jessie Prince for contributing this rhyme and for commenting on it! Thanks to Petranilla for commenting on Humpty Dumpty too!

The 1st illustration is from The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897). The 2nd illustration is from The Real Mother Goose (1916), illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright. 3rd illustration is by H. Willebeck Le Mair from Our Old Nursery Rhymes (1911), arranged by Alfred Moffat.

Thanks so much!