One of the many popular nursery rhymes which have suffered the indignity of being subjected to implausible origin theories. The earliest known text dates from c.1765, starting life as ‘Jack and Gill’, two boys, and only one verse long until added to in the early 19th century. The rhyme was popular on chapbooks and also as the theme for pantomimes. The phrase ‘Jack and Jill’ is older than the rhyme, meaning simply ‘boy and girl’ or ‘lad and lass’, as in Shakespeare's ‘Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill’ (Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii).
Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.
- Opie and Opie, 1997:265-7
