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The figure of Mother Goose is an imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes〔''Macmillan Dictionary for Students'' Macmillan, Pan Ltd. (1981), page 663. Retrieved 2010-7-15.〕 often published as ''Mother Goose Rhymes''. As a character, she appears in one nursery rhyme.〔Margaret Lima Norgaard, "Mother Goose", ''Encyclopedia Americana'' 1987; see, for instance, Peter and Iona Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (1951) 1989.〕 A Christmas pantomime called ''Mother Goose'' is often performed in the United Kingdom. The so-called "Mother Goose" rhymes and stories have formed the basis for many classic British pantomimes. Mother Goose is generally depicted in literature and book illustration as an elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl, a costume identical to the peasant costume worn in Wales in the early 20th century, but is sometimes depicted as a goose (usually wearing a bonnet). ==Identity== Mother Goose is the name given to an archetypal country woman. She is credited with the Mother Goose stories and rhymes popularized in the 1700s in English-language literature, although no specific writer has ever been identified with such a name. 17th century English readers would have been familiar with Mother Hubbard, a stock figure when Edmund Spenser published his satire Mother Hubberd's Tale in 1590; as well as with similar fairy tales told by "Mother Bunch" (the pseudonym of Madame d'Aulnoy) in the 1690s.〔Ryoji Tsurumi, "The Development of Mother Goose in Britain in the Nineteenth Century" ''Folklore'' 101.1 (1990:28–35) p. 330 instances these, as well as the "Mother Carey" of sailor lore— "Mother Carey's chicken" being the European storm-petrel— and the Tudor period prophetess "Mother Shipton".〕 An early mention appears in an aside in a French versified chronicle of weekly happenings, Jean Loret's ''La Muse Historique'', collected in 1650. His remark, ''comme un conte de la Mère Oye'' ("like a Mother Goose story") shows that the term was readily understood. Additional 17th century Mother Goose/Mere l'Oye references appear in French literature in the 1620s and 1630s. In "The Real Personages of Mother Goose" (1930), Katherine Elwes-Thomas submits that the image and name "Mother Goose", or "Mère l'Oye", may be based upon ancient legends of the wife of King Robert II of France, known as "Berthe la fileuse" ("Bertha the Spinner") or ''Berthe pied d'oie'' ("Goose-Foot Bertha" ), who, according to Elwes-Thomas, is often referred in French legends as spinning incredible tales that enraptured children. Another authority on the Mother Goose tradition, Iona Opie, does not give any credence to either the Elwes-Thomas or the Boston suppositions. Despite evidence to the contrary, there are reports, familiar to tourists to Boston, Massachusetts, that the original Mother Goose was a Bostonian wife of an Isaac Goose, either named Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665–1758) or Mary Goose (d. 1690, age 42) who is interred at the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street. According to Eleanor Early, a Boston travel and history writer of the 1930s and '40s, the original Mother Goose was a real person who lived in Boston in the 1660s. She was reportedly the second wife of Isaac Goose (alternatively named Vergoose or Vertigoose), who brought to the marriage six children of her own to add to Isaac's ten.〔Wilson, Susan. ''Literary Trail of Greater Boston''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000: 23. ISBN 0-618-05013-2〕 After Isaac died, Elizabeth went to live with her eldest daughter, who had married Thomas Fleet, a publisher who lived on Pudding Lane (now Devonshire Street). According to Early, "Mother Goose" used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day, and other children swarmed to hear them. Finally, her son-in-law gathered her jingles together and printed them.〔''Reader's Digest'' April 1939:28.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mother Goose」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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