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When Old Mother Goose takes to the stars

The term “Mother Goose’ is most often associated with English nursery rhymes that were popularized in the 1700s. But did you know that the term may have originated with the mother of Charlemagne, and that its real roots are in the stars?

Every year in the month of the May, the constellation Cygnus the Swan begins to rise up with the Milky Way in the northeast. Though typically regarded as a swan, the constellation Cygnus is also referred to as the Northern Cross, and as the Mother Goose, especially as rendered in the ditty:

Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would fly through the air on a very fine gander.

One of the first written references to Mother Goose tales comes from the Frenchman Charles Perrault in the 1600s. Charles is credited with creating the literary genre known as the ‘fairy tale’, and some of our best-known tales comes from his pen, including Little red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Charles and his brother Claude worked for Louis the XIV, known as the ‘sun king.’ Claude Perrault was the architect that designed and built the Paris Observatory, so here we have two brothers working in the service of the Sun King, one devoted to story, the other to creating a structure for observing the stars.

Before the Brother’s Perrault, however, there was Bertrada of Laon who lived in the 8th century and was known by the nickname ‘the queen with the goose foot.’ But it wasn’t her goose foot that made her famous, rather, it was her son, Charlemagne. In some renderings of her history, she is described as a bold supporter of her son, who schooled him with moral imaginations through tales and rhymes.

We can find some of the same inspiration overhead this week, about two hours after sunset, when Old Mother Goose begins to mount up overhead, wings abreast across the Milky Way, sprinkling whimsy and rhyme upon the world below.

Cygnus the Swan is also associated with Old Mother Goose