Editing Mother Goose (section)

==The character==
Mother Goose's name was identified with English collections of stories and nursery rhymes popularised in the 17th century. English readers would already have been familiar with [[Old Mother Hubbard|Mother Hubbard]], a stock figure when [[Edmund Spenser]] published the satire ''[[Mother Hubberd's Tale]]'' in 1590, as well as with similar fairy tales told by "Mother Bunch" (the pseudonym of [[Madame d'Aulnoy]])<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Verdier |first1=Gabrielle |title=Comment l'auteur des «Fées à la mode» devint «Mother Bunch»: Métamorphoses de Comtesse d'Aulnoy en Angleterre" ("How the Author of 'Fairies à la mode' became 'Mother Bunch': Metamorphoses of Countess d'Aulnoy in England |journal=Merveilles & Contes (Wonders & Tales) |date=December 1996 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=285–309 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41390464 |access-date=30 June 2020 |publisher=Wayne State University Press|jstor=41390464 }}</ref> in the 1690s.<ref>Ryoji Tsurumi, "The Development of Mother Goose in Britain in the Nineteenth Century" ''Folklore'' '''101'''.1 (1990:28–35) p. 330 instances these, as well as the "Mother Carey" of sailor lore—"Mother Carey's chicken" being the [[European storm-petrel]]—and the Tudor period prophetess "[[Mother Shipton]]".</ref>  An early mention appears in an aside in a versified French chronicle of weekly events, [[Jean Loret]]'s ''La Muse Historique'', collected in 1650.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shahed |first=Syed Mohammad |title=A Common Nomenclature for Traditional Rhymes |jstor=1178946 |journal=Asian Folklore Studies |volume=54 |number=2 |date=1995 |pages=307–314|doi=10.2307/1178946 }}</ref> His remark, ''comme un conte de la Mère Oye''<!--Oye in original--> ("like a Mother Goose story") shows that the term was readily understood.   Additional 17th-century Mother Goose/Mere l'Oye references appear in French literature in the 1620s and 1630s.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ux46AAAAcAAJ&q=Les+satyres+de+Saint-Regnier |title=Les satyres de Saint-Regnier – ... Saint-Regnier – Google Books |access-date=14 February 2012|last1=Saint-Regnier |year=1626 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uj0-AAAAcAAJ&q=%22Mere+Oye%22 |title=De la nature, vertu et utilité des plantes – Guido de Labrosse – Google Boeken |date=21 September 2009 |access-date=14 February 2012|last1=Labrosse |first1=Guido de }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VMdBAAAAcAAJ |title=Pièces curieuses en suite de celles du Sieur de St. Germain – Google Boeken |access-date=14 February 2012|year=1644 }}</ref>

===Speculation about origins===
In the 20th century, Katherine Elwes-Thomas theorised that the image and name "Mother Goose" or "Mère l'Oye" might be based upon ancient legends of the wife of King [[Robert II of France]], known as "Berthe la fileuse" ("[[Bertha of Burgundy|Bertha the Spinner]]") or ''Berthe pied d'oie'' ("Goose-Footed Bertha" ), often described as spinning incredible tales that enraptured children.<ref>''The Real Personages of Mother Goose'', Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1930, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.75797 <!-- quote=Bertha. --> p.28]</ref> Other scholars have pointed out that [[Charlemagne]]'s mother, [[Bertrada of Laon]], came to be known as the goose-foot queen (''regina pede aucae'').<ref name=":0" /> There are even sources that trace Mother Goose's origin back to the biblical [[Queen of Sheba]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Developing Creative Leadership|last1=Parker|first1=Jeanette|last2=Begnaud|first2=Lucy|publisher=Teacher Ideas Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-56308-631-1|location=Portsmouth, NH|page=76}}</ref> Stories of Bertha with a strange foot (goose, swan or otherwise) exist in many languages including Middle German, French, Latin and, Italian. [[Jacob Grimm]] theorised that these stories are related to the Upper German figure [[Perchta]] or Berchta (English Bertha).<ref>Grimm, J. L. C. [. w. (1882). Teutonic mythology, tr. by J.S. Stallybrass. United Kingdom: (n.p.).</ref> 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,<ref>Grimm, Jacob Ludwig C. [single works]. Teutonic mythology, tr. by J.S. Stallybrass. United Kingdom, n.p, 1882.</ref> although with much darker connotations.   

[[File:Mother Goose Grave Boston.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Mary Goose's gravestone in [[Granary Burying Ground]] in [[Boston]], Massachusetts]]

Despite evidence to the contrary,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D00E1DD1730E132A25757C0A9649C94689ED7CF|title=MOTHER GOOSE – Longevity of the Boston Myth – The Facts of History in this Matter – Review|newspaper=The New York Times|date=4 February 1899|access-date=14 February 2012|first=Joel|last=Benton}}</ref> it has been stated in the United States that the original Mother Goose was the [[Boston]]ian wife of Isaac Goose, either named Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665–1758) or Mary Goose (d. 1690, age 42).<ref>{{cite news|author=[ Displaying Abstract ]|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E03EFDC163AE033A25753C2A9669D94679FD7CF|title=MOTHER GOOSE|newspaper=THE New York Times|date=20 October 1886|access-date=14 February 2012}}</ref> She was reportedly the second wife of Isaac Goose (alternatively named Vergoose or Vertigoose), who brought to the marriage six children of her own to add to Isaac's ten.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Susan|title=Literary Trail of Greater Boston|location=Boston|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company|year=2000|page=23|isbn=0-618-05013-2}}</ref> After Isaac died, Elizabeth went to live with her eldest daughter, who had married Thomas Fleet, a publisher who lived on Pudding Lane (now Devonshire Street). According to Early, "Mother Goose" used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day, and other children swarmed to hear them. Finally, it was said, her son-in-law gathered her jingles together and printed them. No evidence of such printing has been found, and historians believe this story was concocted by Fleet's great-grandson John Fleet Eliot in 1860.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hahn|first1=Daniel|first2=Michael|last2=Morpurgo|title=The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature|date=1983|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-969514-0|page=400|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mb66BwAAQBAJ|access-date=6 January 2020|format=e-Book, Google Books}}</ref> 

[[Iona and Peter Opie]], leading authorities on nursery lore, give no credence to either the Elwes-Thomas or the Boston suppositions. It is generally accepted that the term does not refer to any particular person.<ref>''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'', Oxford University Press 1997; see the section "Mother Goose in America", pp. 36–39</ref>