I n t e r p r e t a t i o n1 4 1evidence to support it. This is why the reading seems fanciful and
far- fetched. It is possible, but not persuasive. It depends a fair
amount on tone, and since tone cannot literally be heard in litera-
ture, it can often prove a source of ambiguity. A change of tone can
signal a shift of meaning. The reading probably finds more in the
text than the text can reasonably support, though not more than it
can logically support.
To say that my construal of the poem is unconvincing is to say
that it offends the sense that we habitually make of things, a fact
that is not to be swept aside. It is a piece of intellectual arrogance to
sweep aside the tacit agreements and assumptions embedded in
everyday life. They can often distil a good deal of wisdom. Yet
common sense is not always to be trusted. Racial equality was
offensive to common sense in 1960s Alabama. As for fanciful inter-
pretations, it has been seriously argued that ‘Goosey Goosey
Gander’ is about the raiding of the homes of recusant Roman
Catholic noblemen by Cromwell’s troops during the seventeenth-
century civil war in England. ‘Goosey’ refers to the goose- stepping
gait of the soldiers as they break into the bedchamber of a Catholic
noblewoman, while the old man who is thrown downstairs for
not saying his prayers is a Catholic chaplain who refuses to bow
to the new Protestant forms of worship. This may well be true.
Superficially, however, it seems just as implausible as my account of
‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.
There is another point to be noted. ‘Goosey Goosey Gander’
may originally have been about religious strife in seventeenth-
century England, but it is not about this for the children who sing
it in the school playground today. For them, it is simply about a
man wandering upstairs into his wife’s bedroom. Does this mean
that their version of the rhyme is unacceptable? Not at all. It is just