best of the best: Nursery Rhymes - Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

good morning!

one of my favorite paintings, by Kay Charao

Today I'm having fun with the nursery rhyme

Peter Peter Pumpkin-Eater!

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,

Had a wife but couldn't keep her;

He put her in a pumpkin shell

And there he kept her very well.

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,

Had another and didn't love her;

Peter learned to read and spell,

And then he loved her very well.

by Scott Gustafson

The first surviving version of this nursery rhyme is found in

Mother Goose's Quarto:

or Melodies Complete,

Boston, MA, USA around 1825.

It is thought to be possibly older.

I love Joan Walsh Anglund's paper dolls.

I bet this book is just as charming.

This is from a vintage book, with "Russel Mary Lafetra" credited.

Not sure if this is the entire book the page is from,

or if this is the name of the illustrator.

The rhyme is cute,
but what does it really mean?
What about that second verse,
new to me?!
Here is one possible explanation:

Peter was a poor man who had an unfaithful wife. She kept cheating on him (couldn’t keep her), so he had to find a way to stop her running around. His solution, fairly common in the middle ages, was a chastity belt (pumpkin shell). For those who don’t know, a chastity belt is roughly a pair of metal underwear with lock and key, so that no one could enter the private region of the woman except whoever held the key, usually her husband. And as the rhyme goes, once he put her in that belt, he kept her very well.

William Wallace Denslow, 1902

Here is another possible explanation:

"Peter Peter is actually an American verse, and was unknown in England til fairly recent times. They had no pumpkins, which are a native American plant. The verse was actually written for children, no hidden meanings or naughty bits."