Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Where the rhyme comes from
Humpty Dumpty first appeared in print in Samuel Arnold’s Juvenile Amusements in 1797, with slightly different words — “four-score men and four-score more” failed to restore him. In the 18th century, “humpty dumpty” was also slang for a short, clumsy person, and the name of a drink of boiled ale and brandy.
The rhyme is widely believed to have begun as a riddle: the listener is meant to guess what sat on the wall, and the answer — an egg — explains why no one could put him together again. Once the answer became universally known, the riddle simply carried on as a rhyme, and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (1871) fixed Humpty’s egg-shaped image forever.
What does it mean?
Two colourful theories are often repeated, though the evidence for both is thin:
The cannon of Colchester. A popular story holds that Humpty Dumpty was a large cannon defending the town walls of Colchester during the English Civil War siege of 1648; when Parliamentarian shot brought the wall down, the cannon fell and could not be remounted. It is a wonderful tale — but it first appears in the 20th century, and historians treat it as folklore rather than fact.
Richard III. Others have suggested the rhyme mocks King Richard III, who fell at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 when all his horses and all his men could not save him. Again, there is no contemporary evidence — the riddle explanation remains the most likely.
Sharing it with children
Humpty is a wonderful lap rhyme. Sit a child on your knees and rock gently through the first two lines — then open your knees for a (safely caught!) “great fall” on line two. Older toddlers love acting it out with a real hard-boiled egg drawn with a face, and discovering why the king’s men really couldn’t put him together again makes a lovely first kitchen-science moment.
Extra verses to sing
These verses aren’t traditional — they’re ours. Sing them if the story needs a happier ending.
Humpty Dumpty sat up and said,
“My shell may be cracked, but I’m not dead!”
The king’s men cheered and the horses too,
And they mended his shell with sticky glue.
Humpty Dumpty climbed up once more,
Higher and prouder than ever before.
But now when he sits where the tall winds blow,
He keeps a soft haystack ready below.
Free printable coloring pages
Four Humpty Dumpty coloring pages that tell the whole story — on the wall, the great fall, the king’s men to the rescue, and a happy picnic ending. Click any page to open it full size, then print it for little hands.
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