The life of a traditional nursery rhyme can be great theater.
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Something can start off dark, even heinous, written hundreds of years ago, and by the time it hits modernity, it’s as soft and fluffy as a cloud.
Or it can have rumors attached to it that seemingly never fade away. Strange meanings behind the verse were considered at the time but were likely not relevant. For examples of both of these instances, we look at the traditional nursery rhyme “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.”
The Origins
As with so many of these traditional nursery rhymes (from “Jack and Jill” to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), the origin of the verse is a bit murky. Who wrote it and why seems endlessly up for debate.
The earliest printed version of the rhyme comes from Joseph Ritson’s Gammer Gurton’s Garland in 1794. Ritson is known today for editing the first academic collection of Robin Hood ballads. That version read:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread;
She whipp’d all their bums, and sent them to bed.
In the following versions, the last line in the verse is often replaced with Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
Newer Versions
As the verse continued to stay alive throughout history, the more violent imagery got whittled down. Rhymes, of course, are often held onto to share with children.
Other versions of the verse came out. Writer Marjorie Ainsworth Decker put her own Christian spin in her 1978 book, The Christian Mother Goose Book:
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children,
And loved them all, too.
She said, “Thank you Lord Jesus,
For sending them bread.”
Then kissed them all gladly
and sent them to bed.
And in the (secular) video below, the rhyme goes,
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe
She had so many children
And loved them all too
When father got home
He gave them all bread
Then they kissed them all softly
And sent them to bed
The (Many) Meanings
Okay, so it’s clear there was never an old woman who lived in a shoe. So, what’s the metaphor?
An old version of the rhyme from Infant Institutes in 1797 concludes with the lines:
Then out went th’ old woman to bespeak ’em a coffin,
And when she came back, she found ’em all a-loffeing.
While this doesn’t shed a ton of light on the meaning or meanings of the rhyme, it does point some to believe the rhyme, though not written down until the late 1700s, may be much older. Some scholars believe “a-loffeing” is Shakespearean, meaning it could stem from the 1500s or 1600s.
In folklore, shoes have a connection to fertility, which is why wedding cars sometimes have shoes tied to the backs of them today. So maybe the rhyme is about a very fertile woman who keeps having kids? Maybe it’s about single parenthood and the discipline and go-without life that comes with it.
Others over time have tried to attribute a person to the rhyme—was there a real-life example of the woman, or was it based on a true story? These are hardly ever the answer when it comes to explaining the outings of traditional nursery rhymes. The rhymes often come before the people and there is little chance an abstract nursery rhyme subsets through decades if it’s rooted in one meaning and just one person’s story.
Nevertheless, anyone from Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II who birthed eight children, to Elizabeth Vergoose of Boston, who had six children, and the wife of Feodor Vassilyev of Shuya, Russia, who gave birth to a reported 69 kids during her 75-year lifespan have been rumored to inspire the nursery rhyme according to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.
Final Thoughts
The idea of an old woman who lives in a shoe could mean anything. Old women (like old men) and shoes have been around for 5,000 years or more. So, the rhyme could mean anything. Which is what makes it fun. If there is a root origin it’s about a woman who takes care of lots of people, likely children. And she’s doing it on her own.
