Just got a book out of the library – Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales (Legacy Press, 1967). Get a load of this one:
Old Mother Goose, when
She wanted to wander
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander
Mother Goose had a house
'T was built in a wood
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood
This is her son Jack,
A plain-looking lad,
He is not very good,
Nor yet very bad.
She sent him to market,
A live goose he bought,
“Here, mother,” says he,
“It will not go for nought.”
Jack’s goose and her gander
Grew very fond,
They’d both eat together,
Or swim in one pond.
Jack found him one morning
As I have been told,
His goose had laid him
An egg of pure gold.
Jack rode to his mother,
The news for to tell,
She called him a good boy
And said it was well.
Jack sold his gold egg
To a rogue of a Jew,
Who cheated him out of
The half of his due.
Then Jack went a-courting
A lady so gay,
As fair as the lily,
And sweet as the May.
The Jew and the Squire
Came behind his back,
And began to belabour
The sides of poor Jack.
And then the gold egg
Was thrown into the sea,
When Jack he jumped in
And got it back presently.
The Jew got the goose,
Which he vowed he would kill,
Resolving at once
His pockets to fill.
Jack’s mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.
I guess I know why they didn’t teach us that one at my nursery school!