Is it just my impression, or is Wee Willie Winkie a peeping tom?

Question

Wee Willie Winkie, running through the town

Upstairs, downstairs, in his NIGHTGOWN.

PEEPING through the windows, crying through the locks,

Are the children in their beds? It's past 8 o'clock.

Listening to this nursery rhyme with my kids, I thought about the words.

Is it just my impression, or is Wee Willie Winkie a peeping tom?

Answer 1

This poem dates back to the Commonwealth in England.  Wee Willie was a public figure who made a lot of unnecessary rules for everyone to follow (like putting kids to bed by a certain hour).  It was Puritan England and government butted into private lives a lot.  

Now if you want a juicy one......  

Rub a dub dub,

Three men in a tub,

And who do you think they be?

The butcher, the baker,

The candlestick maker.

Turn them out, knaves all three!

These three worthy gentlemen were all seen at a peepshow together.   One of them was the mayor, but I don't remember which.  

Oh, and there's

Hey, diddle diddle

The cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.  

The important event in that one was the elopement of the Dish (the lord who took care of the royal dishes) with the Spoon (the royal taster) of Queen Elizabeth I.  The rest refers to how Queen Elizabeth played with her court (she was the cat), the lavish entertainments (the cow jumped over the moon) and the little dog was a lord she referred to as her lap dog.  

By the way, the Spoon's marriage was treasonous because she was third in line for the throne.  She HAD to have Elizabeth's permission to marry.   Lady Mary Grey was caught out when she got pregnant and spent the next seven years in the Tower with her husband and babies.  Her two sons were NEVER considered in the succession even when the Stewart line died out.

Answer 2

LOL..I think you might be right. When I read this to my daughter last year I had the same thought. Oh and think about this...Just what IS a Wee Willie Winkie hmmm?

Answer 3

sounds like it to me! that is too suspicious