Alternative Versions
The earliest recorded version of this rhyme is in Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus published in London in 1784. Like most early versions of the rhyme it does not include the last four lines:
Goose-a goose-a gander,
Where shall I wander?
Up stairs and down stairs,
In my lady's chamber;
There you'll find a cup of sack
And a race of ginger.
Some versions have the additional concluding lines:
The stairs went crack,
He nearly broke his back.
And all the little ducks went,
'Quack, quack, quack'
Iona and Peter Opie note records of a separate rhyme referring to the Crane fly recorded from about 1780, which they suggest may have been amalgamated with this rhyme in the early nineteenth century:
Old father Long-Legs
Can't say his prayers:
take him by the left leg,
And throw him downstairs.
According to amateur historian Chris Roberts, the rhyme is heavily linked to the propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church during the reign of King Henry VIII. However, there is no corroborative evidence to support this claim.
Read more about this topic: Goosey Goosey Gander
Famous quotes containing the words alternative and/or versions:
“Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love—and its partner, hate. Our father—our “second other”Melaborates on them. Offering us an alternative to the mother-baby relationship . . . presenting a masculine model which can supplement and contrast with the feminine. And providing us with further and perhaps quite different meanings of lovable and loving and being loved.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)