"Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!" |
 |
 Humpty
Dumpty is a character in a Mother Goose rhyme, that is portrayed
as an anthropomorphized egg. The origins of this nursery rhyme
vary. According
to one of its origins, Humpty Dumpty was a powerful cannon used
during the English Civil War (1642 - 1649). It was mounted on
top of the St Mary's at the Wall Church in Colchester, England,
defending the city against siege in the summer of 1648. "Although
Colchester was a Parliamentarian stronghold, it had been captured
by the Royalists; they held it for eleven weeks. The church tower
was hit by the enemy and the top of the tower was blown off,
sending "Humpty" tumbling to the ground. Naturally
the King's men (the "men" would have been infantry,
and "horses" the cavalry troops) tried to mend "him"
but in vain. Visitors to Colchester can see the reconstructed
Church tower as they reach the top of Balkerne Hill on the left
hand side of the road.
 In another theory, Humpty
Dumpty referred to King Richard III of England, the hunchbacked
monarch, whose horse was named "Wall". During the battle
of Bosworth Field, he fell off of his steed and was said to have
been "hacked into pieces". (However, although Shakespeare's
play depicts Richard as a hunchback, other historical evidence
suggests that he was not.)
Humpty
Dumpty may also refer to a Roman war machine called a Testudo
used to cross moats and climb over castle walls. Humpty Dumpty
refers to the turtle-like look of the machine and the noise of
the wheels.
Another
theory has Humpty Dumpty as medieval slang for a short, clumsy
person. Martin Gardner in The Annotated Mother Goose suggests
this was exploited in a riddle: after the poem, the reciter asks
how could such a thing happen, the answer being that Humpty Dumpty
was an egg (which fact is never mentioned in the poem). Since
the answer is now so well known, the question is no longer asked.
In L. Frank Baum's Mother Goose in Prose, the riddle is devised
by the King's daughter (having witnessed Humpty's death)." |
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