Title: Goosey Goosey Gander Mother Goose of Animal Verse

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Egerton Leigh, A Glossary of Words Used in the Dialect of Cheshire (1877) essentially repeats Wilbraham's wording for gander-month and adds two entries for gonder: Roger Wilbraham, An Attempt at a Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, second edition (1826), published 60 years earlier, doesn't include an entry for gonder (or gander) at all, although it does have one for gander-month: The speaker wanders through the house as though he’s looking for something. One might read this as the man spreading the STD he was given until he arrives at his “lady’s chambers,” bringing the disease home. Other interpretations don’t consider disease or prostitution at all. Instead, some scholars believe this poem was written with itinerant Catholic priests in mind, using the image of a priest hole and the way these men were treated during the reign of King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and later Oliver Cromwell.

But lest it appear that South Cheshire's gondering is a dead end on the road to "take a gander," Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary (1900) cites the Darlington definition as part of a longer subdefinition of gander:Alliteration: can be seen when the writer repeats the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “Goosey goose gander” in line one and “Wither” and “wander” in line two. At the time of the plague in 1665, it was still believed that disease could spread through unpleasant odours, a belief known as miasma theory. The poem is separated into two parts, the first in which the speaker wanders through his home as though he’s looking for something. He goes upstairs and downstairs and eventually makes his way into his lady’s chamber. Then, he finds an old man who “wouldn’t say his prayers” and throws him down the stairs. The poem ends abruptly without an explanation for these actions. This has led to several different interpretations, as discussed below.

Ladybird, Ladybird is also about 16th Century Catholics in Protestant England and the priests who were burned at the stake for their beliefs. While no one can be certain of the identity of the mysterious man who meets an unfortunate end in this rhyme, the best guess seems to be a priest. In their podcast Something Rhymes With Purple, lexicographer Susie Dent and author Gyles Brandreth discuss how Goosey Goosey Gander appears to tell the story of such a search party, from the viewpoint of a so-called priest-hunter. Unfortunately, when the wall below it was destroyed by enemy fire, the cannon plummeted to the ground.We often say things that have social significance, and there are many people who were concerned about their priests at the time that this rhyme came about. They knew that the king was on the wrong side of history, and they were aware of how hard it was for these priests to do their jobs. The tensions between the Church of England and the Catholic Church exist to this day, and the rhyme has persisted as well. The rhyme eventually came to America, and it spread even further throughout the world.