The unexpected and unpredictable ways in which nursery rhymes arose, from devastating diseases, to discrimination, to the rise and fall of royalty, to civil wars, make for an extraordinary story. There was no telling how they would come to be or how long they would last, but nursery rhymes have stood the test of time, not only for their seemingly fun and catchy melodies, but because they contain key lessons for modern children to learn, as well as portray events happened throughout history. Beginning with Henry VIII, the Anglican Church and continuing into the Victorian era was a time of great religious discrimination. In England this era appeared during the 15th and 16th centuries. This intolerance was also manifested in the nighttime stories recited to children before going to bed. Goosey Goosey Gander channeled the great anti-Catholicism present in England, showing a Catholic priest hiding in a secret chamber inside houses, avoiding his most certain death once discovered. The royals of England were so enraged at the people and their attempt to hide the priests that everyone in the house would be sentenced to death, not just the priest. An implication of the rhyme being a reference to those of the Catholic faith is due to the mention of not saying his prayers, as they were typically said in Latin. During the 15th century in England Humpty Dumpty was a common nickname used to describe larger people. . This may have helped Lewis Carroll as he illustrated the image to assist the rhyme Humpty Dumpty in his book Alice Through the Looking Glass, published in 1810, in which there is a round egg sitting on a wall. There was a civil war in the year 1648 in the town of Colchester. Colchester...... middle of paper......, and then he loved her very much” (Source). Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater is another dark story coated in candy to hide the depraved behavior it features. Taking a psychoanalytic view of the rhyme it is obvious that Peter's treatment of his first wife exemplifies fear and desire to control women, as explained by Lucy Rollin in Cradle and All: a Cultural and Analytical Study of Nursery Rhymes. During the Victorian era the keep would have been used in the sense of providing for his wife, but the image of his wife in a closed shell certainly implies a more sinister and modern tone. There is a hidden lesson in line two of the rhyme, the association between marriage and learning to write may have a strong unconscious appeal to the child suppressing his unsatisfied curiosity about sexual matters in favor of the knowledge that adults offer instead...