Mother Goose

Mother Goose is a character that originated in children's fiction, as the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes.

Later a compilation of English nursery rhymes, titled Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, helped perpetuate the name both in Britain and the United States.

[6] His remark, comme un conte de la Mère Oye ("like a Mother Goose story") shows that the term was readily understood.

[12] Stories of Bertha with a strange foot (goose, swan or otherwise) exist in many languages including Middle German, French, Latin and, Italian.

[13] Like the legends of "Bertha la fileuse" in France and the story of Mother Goose Berchta was associated with children, geese, and spinning or weaving,[14] although with much darker connotations.

An English translation of Perrault's collection, Robert Samber's Histories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose, appeared in 1729 and was reprinted in America in 1786.

[24] In addition to being the purported author of nursery rhymes, Mother Goose is herself the title character in one recorded by the Opies, only the first verse of which figures in later editions of their book.

[29] The stage version became a vehicle for the clown Joseph Grimaldi, who played the part of Avaro, but there was also a shorter script for shadow pantomime which allowed special effects of a different kind.

A new Mother Goose pantomime was written for the comedian Dan Leno by J. Hickory Wood and Arthur Collins for performances at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1902.

[34] Playwright John J. McNally adapted the libretto by Wood and Collins for the 1903 Broadway musical Mother Goose which starred comedian Joseph Cawthorn in the title role.

[40] In the United States there is a granite statue of a flying Mother Goose by Frederick Roth at the entrance to Rumsey Playfield in New York's Central Park.