Lore 290: Growing Pains

Your global campaign just launched.

But wait, the logo's cropped.

The colors are off.

And did Lego clear that image?

When teams create without guardrails, mistakes slip through, but not with Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.

Brand kits and lock templates make following design guidelines a no-brainer for HR sales and marketing teams.

And commercially safe AI powered by Firefly lets them create confidently so your brand always shows up polished, protected, and consistent everywhere.

Learn more at adobe.com/slash go slash express.

Something amazing is happening.

Technology is working harder, faster, and more reliably.

It's delivering results that work.

But who makes technology work?

CDW.

We're a full-service technology solutions provider, advising our clients and designing customized solutions so they can reach their goals and do amazing things.

CDW, make amazing happen.

Find out more at cdw.com.

As long as they stay in the trees, you have nothing to worry about.

The spirits are called abiku and they tend to lurk in the branches of baobab and iroko trees throughout Nigeria.

At least that's where they hang out when they aren't possessing a human host, a very tiny human host.

The word Abiku, you see, translates to none other than predestined to death.

According to Nigerian legend, these spirits belong to children who are doomed to die young.

And if that weren't tragic enough, they are said to target the same mothers again and again, becoming the soul of each new baby she bears, remorselessly forcing her to lose child after child.

A family might think that they've escaped, might have a son or daughter who lives past infancy, then into childhood and toward their teen years, only for the Abiku to take them on their 13th birthday.

It's hard to imagine a crueler kind of monster, but according to some contemporary analyses, Abiku legends do serve a purpose beyond the misery.

It's possible that the superstition developed to help families make sense of genetic illnesses such as sickle cell disease, which could cause multiple premature deaths within the same family line.

And they aren't alone.

From Scottish changelings to the Filipino Chianak, every culture has its own folklore explaining why a child might be taken before their time.

And the truth is, while these stories may be about children, they really exist to help adults process something too terrible to name.

Which leaves us with a question: When death comes calling, what stories are the children telling?

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

They are the first poems that we hear.

Long before we can read or write, tales of itsy bitsy spiders and three men in a tub fill our young imaginations.

In fact, nursery rhymes are so ubiquitous, it might feel like they've simply always been around.

Except, of course, they they haven't.

No, these nonsense rhymes came from somewhere, and at one point, they may not have been nonsense at all.

Take that old classic song of Little Bo Peep.

This little ditty first appeared in print in 1805, and more than two centuries later, it's still one of the most beloved children's songs in the English language.

For perspective, Old Town Road broke records by holding the number one spot on the charts for 19 weeks.

Impressive, sure, but Lil Bo Peep's been a hit for 200 years and going.

Talk about a banger.

Of course, we all know the first verse, right?

Lil Bo Peep has lost her sheep and can't tell where to find them.

Leave them alone and they'll come home and bring their tails behind them.

Which is cute, right?

Cute that is, if you forget the lesser-sung later verse in which Bo Peep sets off to find her lost sheep, only to despair when she discovers their tails ripped from their bodies and hanging on a tree to dry.

And honestly, that darkness is nothing nothing compared to some of the stories about where the rhyme originated.

Now, to understand this first theory, you need a bit of background.

In the 1700s, there was an area of East Hastings, Sussex, infamous for black market smugglers.

These criminals were famous for popping in and out of East Hastings right under the customs agents' noses.

Basically, a high-stakes game of peekaboo.

Except back then, that game wasn't called peekaboo yet.

It was known as Bo Peep.

And so East Hastings itself came to be known as Bo Peep.

Because of this, some believe that Little Bo Peep isn't a song about a shepherdess at all.

No, she's actually a customs agent.

The lambs?

Well, they're smugglers, which makes the tales, of course, none other than the smuggler's loot.

Now, look, this story seems like a bit of a stretch, and that's probably because it is.

The theory is just that, it's a theory, and it isn't the only one either.

Another claim holds that Little Bo Peep is none other than Mary, Queen of Scots, losing her followers, aka her sheep, after her second marriage.

At the end of the day, though, the true origin remains shrouded in shadow, because sometimes we folklorists reach a dead end and simply don't know what to do.

But forget sheep.

What about cats?

Hey, diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle.

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such a sport and the dish ran away with a spoon.

This rhyme first appeared in print in 1765, but some scholars believe its origins stretch back much farther.

In fact, a play from 1569 included the line, they be at hand, sir, with stick and fiddle, they play a new dance called Hey Diddle Diddle.

Could this be a clue that the nursery rhyme existed in the 1500s?

Or what about the fact that medieval monks had a tendency to doodle fiddle-playing cats in the margins of illuminated manuscripts?

Is that related?

Or is it just coincidence?

Of course, there are plenty of more elaborate rumors.

Some say the song is related to the worship of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.

Others that it alludes to biblical events, or even that the cat in the poem refers to one of a variety of historical Catherines, such as Catherine of Aragon or the wife of Peter the Great.

But alas, I'm here to burst every one of those bubbles.

There just isn't any evidence that a single one of those explanations is true.

Yes, there's a sliver of a chance that the rhyme is referring to a ball game called cat that would have been played at old-timey inns accompanied by fiddle music, but the truth is just like with Bo Peep, we simply don't know.

Sometimes tracking down a nursery rhyme can feel like tracking an animal who only leaves a footprint every 100 years.

Luckily though, some footprints are bigger than others.

Like for example, the kind left by a shoe so big it can house an old woman and more children than she knows what to do with.

Now, a shoe may seem like a rather odd choice of dwelling for a growing family, but actually, the little old woman who lived in a shoe is less random than you might think.

You see, hidden in this particular nursery rhyme is a bit of British superstition.

Shoes, it turns out, have long been used in British folklore to represent fertility.

Just like historical maidenhood, a shoe is a personal private item owned by a woman until marriage.

It's even hidden under her long skirt.

And with that in mind, it starts to make a lot more sense why so many fairy tales, from Cinderella to the red shoes, feature romantic young women with magical footwear.

In fact, in one old English folk custom, a woman trying to have a baby could improve her chances by putting on the shoes of a woman who had just given birth.

And hey, if a normal-size shoe can encourage pregnancy, then what happens if you have a giant house-size shoe?

Well, you might just end up with so many children that you don't know what to do.

There are, unfortunately, terrible diseases all over the world.

Illnesses that can dissolve your bones or make you break out in boils or heck, just plain kill you.

But there is one sickness more contagious than all the rest.

And most frightening of all, it only seems to affect children.

In Britain, it's known as the dreaded lurgy.

In Japan, it's ngacho.

But if you grew up in the United States, you know this terror by another name.

I'm talking, of course, about cooties.

Now, okay, fine, cooties doesn't actually exist, but don't tell a 10-year-old that, because kids have been inoculating each other against this imaginary playground disease for over a century.

Like many childhood traditions, cooties didn't originate with children at all.

The term cooties actually started as a World War I-era nickname for the body lice that soldiers contracted in the trenches.

And before that, the term itself may have been derived from the Malay word kutu, which refers to biting insects that feed on blood.

Now, no one is sure how it gets from Malaysia to the Western Front, but whatever the case, the word seems just as contagious as the kutis themselves, because once the soldiers got home, American children quickly adopted it as their own.

What exactly is the kudis disease?

Well, sometimes it's likened to the plague.

Other times it's enmeshed in the fear of the opposite gender.

After all, as any little girl can tell you, boys have cooties and vice versa, right?

In short, though, it's an imaginary illness that kids pretend to contract through games of what's called cooties tag, which is basically regular tag, except that getting touched gives you the cooties.

But don't worry, if you happen to catch this monstrous malady, there are cures.

And lucky for you, cootie shots are available for free on playgrounds across the country.

No health insurance required.

The supplies are simple too.

All you need is a retractable pen, which a friend will click against your arm while chanting, circle, circle, dot, dot.

Now you have the cootie shot.

No pen on hand?

Well, no problem.

A few easy folds of a piece of paper and you can make a contraption known as a cootie catcher, which acts as a pincer to tweeze the speckled cooties off of an infected friend.

Manipulated by the fingers, the device contains various flaps that can open and close to not only snatch up those pesky cooties, but also reveal written messages or fortunes, hence its other most common name, the fortune teller.

Now, all of this leads to one question.

Why are kids so creepily obsessed with infecting one another with a fake plague?

Well, perhaps the answer lies in history itself.

You see, cooties really started catching on.

Sorry, no pun intended there.

Well, maybe the pun was intended, but you get the idea.

It started catching on in the early 1950s.

You know what else was rampant then?

Polio.

That's right, an illness that not only disproportionately affected children, but had no available vaccine at the time.

If kids couldn't protect their friends from polio, at least they could save one another from cooties and thus feel a tiny bit safer in an uncertain world.

A game?

It's never just a game, is it?

There's always something else hidden beneath the surface, a curiosity or a fear, driving children to play act their way to understanding.

And all too often, the root is death itself.

Another playground mainstay exhibits this all too well, that is, jump rope games.

Now, at first glance, it might seem like jump rope rhymes recited to the rhythm of a turning rope are simply intended to help keep time for the jumpers.

But if you listen closely to the lyrics, something darker is at work.

Take this popular rhyme.

I had a little bird, its name was Enza.

Opened up the door, and influenza.

Now, that had a long life as a wordplay joke before kids ever picked it up, but suddenly little Enza started hopping into jump rope games across the nation.

When?

Why, smack dab in the middle of 1918.

That's right, the same year the Spanish flu decimated the world, or as it was more formally named, influenza.

By the time the pandemic subsided in the spring of 1919, around a quarter of the world's population had contracted the flu, and 3 to 5% of the world was dead.

During the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, payroll cuts of the mid-1930s, folklorist Lucy Knowlton recorded jump roping children chanting, WPA, WPA, you're let go, go get your pay.

While during World War II, kids skip roped to a rhyme that went, Charlie Chaplin went to France to show those French girls how to dance.

Salute to the captain, bow to the queen, and turn your back on the Nazi submarine.

The world can be a scary, violent place.

Even as adults, we feel this every day.

But for children, a population with no power, no control over their fate, that uncertainty is all the more looming.

And if a child can't change that fate, at the very least, they can sing about it.

But what happens when singing isn't enough?

What happens when death comes anyway?

Well, sometimes the only thing left to do is gather your friends, roll up your sleeves, and perform a little necromancy.

You never expected to die at the tender age of 13, but here you are flat on your back with your arms crossed over your chest, a perfect corpse.

Although your eyes are closed, you can hear your friends giggling around you, sprawled atop their sleeping bags.

The air smells like bubblegum and nail polish, and someone's borrowed their mom's incense burner to really set the mood.

You try not to cough.

After all, dead girls don't cough.

Ready, you hear someone say, and suddenly you feel your friends circling around you, scooting in close.

They each extend two fingers, one per hand, and slide them beneath you with precision.

And then, with only those fingers, they attempt to lift you from the floor.

It fails, of course.

You're way too heavy to lift with only a finger, but the air is too full of laughter.

At least, that's what you think, until someone in the circle begins to chant, light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board.

The others have joined in now, a chorus of girls all repeating the same strange phrase as once again you feel their fingers slide beneath you.

Light as a feather, they recite in unison, stiff as a board.

And then, You begin to levitate.

It's a staple of slumber parties nationwide.

Even if you've never played light as a feather, stiff as a board yourself, you've probably heard of it.

It pretty much screams 1990s sleepover core right up there with spin the bottle and truth or dare.

Except, well, this isn't a game from the 90s at all.

The first record we have of it is actually from the 60s.

Now, you might be thinking the 1960s, but think again, because the evidence that I'm about to share with you just so happens to have been written on July 31st of 1665, more than 350 years ago.

The diary belonged to an Englishman named Samuel Pepys, who was famous for documenting everything from the Great London Fire to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in his detailed daily journals.

In fact, so many big moments from history show up in these pages, you could easily gloss right over a little moment in which a group of kids raise a friend from the dead.

In the July 31st entry, Pepys recounts a conversation with a friend of his named Mr.

Brisbane.

The two were speaking of, and I quote, enchantments and spells, when Mr.

Brisbane brought up a rather odd sight he had witnessed while traveling in Bordeaux, France.

Apparently Brisbane had seen four little girls kneeling in a circle, each down on one knee.

In the center of their circle, a little boy lay flat on his back, as if, to quote the journal, he were dead.

The girls recited a short poem in the round, each one whispering the next line into her neighbor's ear.

The littlest of them was so young she kept messing up the words, but still the children forged on until the poem was complete.

Pepys recorded the poem in its original French, but translated into English, it went a little something like this.

Here is a dead body, stiff as a stick, cold as marble, light as a spirit.

We raise you in the name of Jesus Christ.

And with that, each girl put one finger under the boy, and to Brisbane's astonishment, the boy floated right off the ground, lifted as high as the girl's arms could reach.

Understandably this seriously freaked Brisbane out.

Surely he thought it had to be a trick.

Maybe the boy was just very very light.

So determined to get to the bottom of this creepy display Brisbane fetched the house's cook a rather large and I quote lusty man The cook lay down and the little girls repeated the demonstration and lo and behold they lifted him as easily as they lifted the small boy.

And okay, I just have to include this excerpt from the diary where Pepys asks Brisbane, and I quote, whether they were Protestant or Catholic girls, and he told me they were Protestant, which made it the more strange to me, because Catholic kids are making their friends fly all the time, I suppose.

Suffice to say, Pepys was totally fascinated by this story, and so am I.

It shows that even though the chant itself has changed, kids have been playing some version of Light as a Feather for a long, long time, and to have shown up so concretely in 17th century France means that it was probably an established thing well before that some scholars believe it may have even originated way back in the 14th or 15th centuries inspired by what were called mystery plays these mystery plays were massive traveling pageants that depicted biblical stories including the resurrections of jesus and lazarus it's not hard to imagine children completely entranced by these spectacles running home to act the scenes out with their friends now i should tell you there's another reason that Samuel Pepys may have found the story notable enough to include in his journal.

A reason that has everything to do with other entries surrounding it, documenting the rest of the summer of 1665.

Because here's the thing, those other entries weren't about children's games at all.

Oh no, they were entirely dedicated to something else that had overtaken Europe that summer.

a force that was snuffing out thousands of lives every week.

That is, the Great Plague of London.

Once again, it seems the world of make-believe had become a mirror for the real world.

Except one small caveat.

Lights as a feather, stiff as a board, isn't fully make-believe at all.

Because the wildest thing about those levitation spells, they just so happen to actually work.

Okay, fine, it isn't magic.

The secret behind light as a feather isn't witchcraft at all, but science.

Basically, the act of lifting in unison evenly distributes the dead girl's weight so that each lifter is only supporting a tiny fraction of her with her fingers.

And fingers?

Well, it turns out they're surprisingly strong.

Believe it or not, the world record for just a pinky finger deadlift is a whopping 242 pounds.

Add to that the fact that the rhyme of the chant helps to synchronize the movements precisely, and it's hard not to see how one sleepover's worth of girls could manage to lift a single kid.

The world is, as I said, a frightening place.

Whether from sickness or accident or just old age, we all die eventually, and one of the strangest thresholds of childhood is learning what that means.

Now, sure, these games and rhymes, they may seem dark, but in a way they're just the opposite.

They're weapons that kids from every era in history have used to fight back against the scary stuff of everyday life and make sense of the senseless.

Let me give you one last example.

Most of us know Miss Mary Mack.

You know, she's dressed in black and has silver buttons down her back.

Yeah, that one.

While there are different variants of this clapping game across the world, Americans have sung a particular version since 1915.

In this one, Miss Mary Mac asks her mother for 50 cents to watch the elephant jump over the fence.

Now, some claim that's a reference to the USS Merrimack, a 19th-century American warship.

On the other hand, the inclusion of the elephant has caused some to believe that Mary Mack refers to a historical circus performer, perhaps one who worked with elephants.

But to be honest, my researcher did not find any real-life figure that could back up this claim.

But do you know what scholars have found?

An old English riddle describing a strange figure.

Mary Mac dressed in black, silver buttons all down her back, and then daring the solver to name her.

It's a tough one for sure, but I will give you a clue.

What if those silver buttons weren't buttons at all, but a row of gleaming silver nails?

That's right.

The answer to the riddle is that Miss Mary Mack is none other than a coffin.

I hope you've enjoyed this hopscotch through childhood folklore and the haunting histories behind the scenes.

It's clear that no matter where in the world or when in time you look, games and nursery rhymes are an integral part of being young.

But if you live in the United States, those nursery rhymes are often referred to by another name, that is, Mother Goose Tales.

Which begs the obvious question, who exactly was Mother Goose?

Well, the answer may surprise you.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

This episode of Lore was sponsored by Squarespace.

As a former freelance graphic designer and a current small business owner, I know firsthand how tough it can be to craft a brand and a website around who you are and what you do, but Squarespace makes it so incredibly easy.

Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online.

Whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your growing business, Squarespace gives you everything you need.

Whether it's consultations, events, or experiences, Squarespace lets you showcase your offerings with a customizable website that's designed to attract clients and grow your business, get paid on time with professional on-ran invoices and online payments, and streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling.

Squarespace has cutting-edge tools that are meant to give you the boost you need to craft a beautiful site around you and your brand.

Their library of beautifully designed award-winning website templates let you use drag-and-drop editing, beautiful styling options, and unrivaled visual design effects with no experience required.

Squarespace can use basic information about your industry, your goals, and your personality to generate personalized design recommendations, and their Squarespace email campaigns option has all the tools that you need to engage clients, promote your services, and grow your business.

Get started today.

Head over to squarespace.com slash lore for a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch it, use the offer code LOR to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Squarespace, build something beautiful.

This episode is also sponsored by Mint Mobile.

If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to say no.

At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no.

No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS.

Ditch overpriced wireless and their jaw-dropping monthly bills, unexpected overages, and hidden fees.

Plans start at 15 bucks a month at Mint Mobile and come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile Mobile plan and bring your own phone number along with your existing contacts.

Honestly, if I needed a new cell provider today, Mint Mobile is what I would use.

I've watched Grim and Mild teammates set up their Mint Mobile plans and I've been blown away by how easy and simple the process is.

Plus, the savings are just too good to pass up.

Ready to say yes to say no?

Make the switch at mintmobile.com/slash lore.

That's mintmobile.com/slash lore.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 per month.

Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabyte on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

This episode was also sponsored by Simply Safe.

Here's a question for you.

Can a home security system really call itself security if it only responds once someone is already inside?

Because that by definition is the reactive approach.

By the time the intruder is inside your home, it's too late.

Your feeling of safety is shattered.

That's why real security should stop a crime before it even starts.

Here's how SimplySafe does it.

They use smart AI-powered cameras to detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents.

And this is the game changer.

The agents take action while the intruder is still outside.

They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera and that police are on the way, and even sounding a loud siren and triggering a spotlight if needed.

That's how you stop crying before it starts.

That's real security.

And that's why I trust SimpliSafe.

Their system is designed to be proactive, not reactive.

I love the way SimplySafe uses smart technology to empower me to stay connected to my property.

That gives me the confidence that everything is taken care of and safe.

There are no long-term contracts or hidden fees, and you can cancel anytime.

That's why SimplySafe was named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years running.

Plus, they have a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see the difference for yourself.

Right now, my listeners can save 50% on a SimplySafe home security system at simply safe.com/slash lore.

That's simplysafe.com/slash lore.

There's no safe like simply safe.

And finally, this episode was made possible by me undies.

Hey guys, fall is here.

The nights are getting cooler.

The Halloween decorations are going up and the clothes are getting layered.

But if you're still rocking old beat-up boxers under those flannels and jeans, well, we gotta talk.

It's time to upgrade to me undies.

These things are ridiculously soft, like don't want to take them off soft.

They're made with micro-modal fabric that feels like a cloud, but still breathe when things heat up.

And yeah, they've got legit stretch too.

So whether you're reading reading a book on the couch or you're tossing the football outside, they've got you covered.

And just in time for spook season, Miundi's limited edition Halloween line features fun festive prints, including glow-in-the-dark underwear.

So you can rock the spooky vibes underneath it all.

Miundi's has a cut for everybody with over 20 different styles in 100 different colors and prints.

Plus, they use sustainably sourced materials and work with partners that care for their workers.

And for the curious out there, I personally went with their ultra-modal core boxer brief, and I honestly can't get over how soft and perfect they are.

Just pure cloud-like comfort.

With more than 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, Miundies are an essential must-have for every drawer.

Not happy with your first pair of undies?

It's on Miundies.

Right now, as a listener of this show, you can get cozy and spooky for less with deals up to 50% off at meundies.com/slash lore and enter the promo code lore.

That's meundies.com/slash/lore, promo code lore for up to 50% off.

Meundies, comfort that's made for fall.

I know this one will be a deep cut, but does anyone remember the 1990 made-for-TV movie called Mother Goose Rock and Rhyme?

It takes place in the fictional world of Rhymeland, where all nursery rhyme characters or rhymeys, live.

Trouble hits paradise when Mother Goose, the creator of Rhymeland and everyone in it, goes missing, and it's up to her denizens to figure out what went wrong.

Which, sure, might seem like a reasonable enough premise for a kids movie if all these characters weren't played by rock stars.

Yes, you heard me right.

I'm talking about Little Richard as Old King Cole, Blondie's Debbie Harry as the little old woman who lived in a shoe, Paul Simon as Simple Simon, and all three members of ZZ Top as the three men in a tub.

Throw in Cindy Lauper as Mary, and for some inexplicable reason, Woody Harrelson as her lamb, all headed by a Lilbo Peep played by Shelley Duvall, and you've got yourself a really weird time.

Oh, and did I mention?

It's a musical.

Honestly, I'm not totally convinced that the whole thing wasn't just a bizarre fever dream.

But what makes this movie special, other than the insane things I've just mentioned, is that here, Mother Goose isn't just a name in a book, but a real person.

Which begs the question was she and if so how did she become the matriarch of nursery rhymes to begin with well according to legend mother goose started out not as a mother at all but a girl her name was elizabeth foster goose or in some cases elizabeth vergoose and she was said to have been born in boston sometime in the 1600s and the story goes elizabeth grew up to marry a man who had already had 10 children and then the two of them had six more grandchildren of course followed and suffice suffice to say with that many kids running around the house, you'd have to come up with some pretty unique ways of keeping them entertained.

And for Elizabeth, her go-to tactic was singing.

Now, Elizabeth didn't have a very good voice.

As one writer put it, she sang in, and I quote, not the most melodious strains.

And while the children adored her songs, some adults had a different opinion, namely Elizabeth's son-in-law, the printer Thomas Fleet.

Which was bad luck for him because he and his wife happened to be the parents of Elizabeth's first grandchild, to whom she sang day and night.

Eventually, an annoyed Thomas Fleet figured out that if he was going to have to listen to this old woman basically honking, he may as well cash in on it.

And so in 1719, he published an edition of Elizabeth's rhymes titled, For the Nursery, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children.

He's said to have given it this title not just because of the woman's last name, but due to the fact that his mother-in-law sounded like a goose when she sang.

The book contained every single mother goose rhyme that we know and love today, really an incredible compendium for little ones and folklore scholars alike.

Except, while there's an itsy-bitsy problem with this book, and thus with the entire origin story in general, you see, no copy of the volume has ever been found to exist.

In fact, it appears that the first actual printed use of the phrase mother goose tales was not in English at all, but in the early 1600s in France.

By the end of that century, a Charles Perrault collection featured an illustration of an older woman reading stories to children beside a sign that read, Contumer Loire, or Tales of My Mother Goose.

Apparently, the phrase was already well known in France by then and was basically used in the same way we might say old wives' tales.

More generally, mother goose as a phrase was just a generic name for a countrywoman.

Eventually, the term seems to have made it into English parlance until it became a household name in the late 1700s.

So then, what's the deal with that whole story of Elizabeth and her oodles of grandchildren?

Well, it appears that we owe the tale to none other than the great-grandson of the printer in the story, Thomas Fleet.

And no, it was not passed down to him through the generations.

It seems that this great-grandson made the entire thing up on his own.

Yes, Mother Goose herself is simply another invented character, one that's fit for a nursery rhyme.

This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Jenna Rose Nethercott, research by Cassandra DeAlba, and music by Chad Lawson.

Just like you, I'm not a fan of hearing ads.

I've got a solution, though.

I've made a paid version of lore available on Apple Podcasts and Patreon, and it's 100% ad-free.

Plus, the subscribers there get weekly mini-episodes called lore bites.

It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support the show and the team behind it.

Learn more about the pricing and benefits of those ad-free streams over at lorepodcast.com slash support.

And of course, lore is much more than just a podcast, right?

There's the book series available in bookstores and online, in hardcover and paperback now, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime.

Information about all of that is also available over at lorepodcast.com.

And you can also follow this show on places like YouTube, Threads, Instagram, and Blue Sky.

Just search for LorePodcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi.

And as always, thanks for listening.