Do you remember the nursery rhythm “Humpty Dumpty”? Many of us will start to picture an egg on the wall. Though it might seem like an egg to us for hundreds of years, the fact is actual rhythm never alluded to it as an egg. The historical events suggested that it was a cannon of Royalists. During the English Civil War in 1648, a cannon fell from battle and was unable to put together. From there the idea for the rhythm lyrics came up.

Let’s go through the story once again

An egg (Well, the word egg was never used in the poem) named humpty dumpty sat on a wall. Suddenly, he fell off the wall and fell on the ground which left it cracked. Neither king’s men nor its horse could recover it. So it makes a complete sense why would someone try to recover a broken egg.

Tellingly, it’s not our fault to think of it as an egg. Lewis Carroll’s novel “Through the Looking Glass” that was written in 1870 put everyone in confusion. Why because he depicted humpty dumpty as an egg in the chapter six of the book. Since then all popular culture has portrayed it as an egg. So it was Carroll who introduced humpty as an egg.

What was humpty dumpty?   

Now as we know humpty dumpty was a cannon used in the Siege of Colchester in 1648. The cannon was mounted on the top of the tower of St Mary’s Church in Colchester. This church was built against the Roman Wall. The Royalist had been protecting the Town of Colchester so that King Charles I got a chance to rule the country without parliament. Many attacks to destroy the protected Town went unsuccessful.

 Finally the parliamentarians turned their attention to the cannon humpty dumpty. They attacked the wall on which humpty dumpty was sat upon. At last the parliamentarians succeeded in destroying the cannon. As soon as the cannonballs struck the wall dumpty had a great fall. All the efforts by the king’s men to recover the cannon failed due to its huge size. Eventually, the enemies won the war in 1649 and took control of the town.

So once a cannon now famous as egg has become a popular nursery rhythm. Now you can answer proudly if someone asks you a question “Was humpty dumpty a cannon?”