Sing a Song of Sixpence

Additional Endings - Rhinoplasty in the Middle Ages?

In a few editions of the rhyme, a fifth stanza is included. One of the most unique is from James Orchard Halliwell's 1853 compilation, Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Tales of England. In this version, “Jenny was so mad, she didn't know what to do; she put her finger in her ear, and crakt it right in two.” Iona and Peter Opie have included a “happy ending,” to the rhyme in their 1955 work, The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. “They sent for the king's doctor, who sewed it on again, and he sewed it on so neatly, the seam was never seen.” However, neither of these endings is elucidated in accompanying drawings.

Caldecott does, however illustrate yet another ending, “But then there came a Jenny Wren and popped it on again.” Since Caldecott had the luxury of depicting this rhyme over many pages, one sees in the previous scenes the character and plot development unfold. At first mention of the maid, she stands a solitary figure on the left page, looking across her shoulder to the right hand page at a palace guard who is goose-stepping in her direction. A slight smile is detected both on her face and ever so subtly, with just a suggestion of a line, on the face of the guard in the distance. She then hangs out the clothes, and upon turning the page, one sees the perpetrator of the vicious nose snatching, the blackbird.

On the opposite page, the deed has been done, and the maid has her hands to her face. The guard aims his gun and shoots at the blackbird, which drops the nose, presumably to be caught in the open mouth of a smaller bird, perched in the tree below. This jenny (or house) wren then flutters by to reattach the maid's nose, with the blackbird squawking in the background. All the while, the maid is held about the waist by the guard, with an “Ah, you see, all is well now,” look upon his face. A happy, if not contrary ending indeed, for if, as some suggest, the maid represents Anne Boleyn, she did not have such luck. The nose is actually her head, the blackbird the royal headsman.