Many scholars agree that Baa, Baa, Black Sheep is a reference to a tax on wool introduced in 1275 by King Edward I. Under these rules, a third of the cost of a sack of wool went to the Crown, another third went to the church and the last to the farmer. The wool of black sheep is said to have been especially prized as it could be made into dark cloth without dyeing.
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is often sung as part of a nursery game. According to historian R. S. Duncan, a former governor of England’s Wakefield Prison, the song originated with their female prisoners, who were exercised around a mulberry tree. "On a cold and frosty morning..."
Jack and Jill is commonly seen as a nonsense verse, particularly as the couple go up a hill to find water, which is usually found at the bottom of hills. However, an woodcut that accompanied the first recorded version of the rhyme showed two boys (not a boy and a girl) and used the spelling Gill not Jill. This may be related to the fact that a Gill is an Imperial unit of fluid measure, defined in the Imperial system as a quarter-pint. In the same system of measure, a Jack is defined as a half-gill. So, Jack and Jill (Gill) represent a eighth-pint and quarter-pint respectively. It has therefore been suggested that the rhyme records the attempt by King Charles I to reform the taxes on liquid measures. Curious...
And finally, Ring A Ring O' Roses (in the US Ring Around The Rosie)- the most popular contention is that this verse refers to the 1665 Great Plague of London. Sorry, no - even Snopes labels this as false now, and quotes folklorist Philip Hiscock with a more likely suggestion: That the nursery rhyme probably has its origins in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century. The debate continues... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/
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