If you were raised in an Anglophone country and are of a certain age, chances are you became familiar with the Humpty-Dumpty nursery rhyme while growing up. As I grew up in Germany for the first two decades of my life I didn’t. When and where I first heard the poem I don’t recall, and I knew very little about it until I did a little reading in preparation for this post.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
According to several online sources, the quatrain started out as a riddle, to which the answer might or might not have been egg. It was only after Lewis Carroll’s 1871 Through the Looking Glass (the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) that Humpty Dumpty became associated with an anthropomorphic egg. The nursery rhyme’s long and illustrious career includes being set to music, and countless online versions of the song exist, available to you at your leisure.
Colorado Springs’ civic, cultural, and economic interests are the concern of the Downtown Partnership. Its charitable nonprofit arm, Downtown Ventures, has been behind the popular annual Art on the Streets project which “celebrates the power of art in public places.” Each year since 1998, it has selected submissions from artists and displayed them downtown for 12 months.
A number of the exhibits have become permanent installations after the course of the year when purchased by an individual or organization. Such was the case with the 2003 submission, Hump D, fashioned by Minneapolis artist Kimber Fiebiger. Seated on a low wall adjacent to the Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts, the bronze was so popular that local businesses have since commissioned similar designs and placed them in various locations throughout the core of our city. It was only this summer that I happened across a few of them, and I can relate why new ones keep appearing in different places. One never tires of looking at these jovial, happy creations without feeling jovial and happy oneself.
To enlarge a photo, click on it. To read its caption, hover the cursor over it.
PS: Some, but not all of the titles I found on the artist’s webpage. Incidentally, I also stumbled across a creation entitled “Trumpty-Dumpty.” While it represents the exact opposite of happy and jovial, it is very timely.
Lustige Bilder, Tanja 😊
Den Text lese ich später, wenn ich am PC bin.
Hab noch nicht rausgefunden, wie ich auf dem Smartphone den Google Übersetzer einschalten kann.
Liebe Grüße
Brigitte
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Dankeschön, liebe Brigitte.
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A quick search with uncle google and it’s believed that the ‘original’ Humpty Dumpty was a cannon that was destroyed in the English civil war at Colchester. Not quite as romantic but hey-ho.
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Thank you for bringing this up. Brian. I came across that fact, too, but decided against including it.
But that would have been an answer to the riddle, too. A destroyed cannon cannot be glued back together again.
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Eggie The Eagle gets my top vote. He’s about to take a leap into the unknown.
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Just like the rest of the country, you mean?
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These are fun, Tanja!
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I’m glad you think so, V. J. Thank you!
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Welcome!
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The German name of the artist you mentioned sent me searching for its origin. I found this about Fiebig (and therefore Fiebiger): “topographic name for someone who lived by a drovers’ road, Middle High German vihewec, from vehe, vihe, vich ‘cattle’ + wec ‘way’, ‘path’. The surname originated chiefly in Saxony, Silesia, and Bohemia.” The first part of that compound has interesting etymological connections to English and Latin:
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=fee
According to the Wikipedia article that you’ve presumably read, the second half of the earliest known version of Humpty Dumpty, from 1797, differs from what has become the standard:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
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That is an interesting etymology, Steve. Even today “Vieh” is the German word for cattle.
And I did read about the older version of the poem. Also, the reference to a cannon one other blogger pointed out, but I thought more references would have led us too far afield.
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What fun! I especially like the Humpty skier. Very appropriate for Colorado. As for Trumpty-Dumpty, oh my!
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Good point about the skier, as many people associate Colorado with downhill skiing. And as far as the Trumpty-Dumpty, what else is there to say? 😦
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Sigh. Not much.
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For me Humpty Dumpty equals Chips!
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I had to look that up, Christa, never having eaten that brand of chips. I hope they taste good.
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I am not a big Chips-eater, I just know that this brand of chips exists!😉
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als ich das humpty-dumpty in der überschrift las, dachte ich gleich an den humpty-dumpty sat on a wall. und dann dachte ich: woher kenne ich das eigentlich? und ich las weiter und dachte, ach ja, genau, aus alice im wunderland. 🙂
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Ach ja, das ist interessant. Das hast Du mir voraus. Ich habe die Geschichte nie als Kind gelesen. Vor einigen Jahren wollte ich das nachholen, doch ich habe nach einigen Seiten aufgegeben. Ich hoffe, daß er mir irgendwann mal gelingen wird.
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ich habe das buch auch nicht gelesen, ich habe den film gesehen. vielleicht ist das ja auch was für dich? die verfilmung hatte mir sehr gefallen.
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I like public art that lifts the spirit, and this initiative does just that. A bit like “you can’t unscramble an egg” we have a saying here, when anything is broken beyond repair or has gone wrong and can never be fixed, which runs “You can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” I guess you don’t have that in the US?
Thank you for sharing Trumpty-Dumpty, which has also lifted my spirits 🙂. All eyes on 3 November!
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Lifting people’s spirit is definitely one wonderful effect public art might have. Mr. P. I think I have heard the expression about the impossibility of unscrambling an egg, but not often, and I don’t remember where and when.
All eyes on November 3 is right, but depending on the outcome, I might not want to open them.
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Me too!
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Humpty Dumpty was an important part of early childhood here…one of the few rhymes I remember. 🙂 I love ‘Eggie the Eagle’ – eggstradordinary, hehe!
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It’s a catchy rhyme, Ann, and easy to remember. How exciting that Eggie inspired you a neologism. Eggstraordinary! 😊
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Hehe!
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Klasse!
Trumpty Dumpty ist ja wohl cool.
“Trumpty Dumpty wollte eine Krone: Verse für ein despotisches Zeitalter”
Die Bücher sind zur Zeit nicht lieferbar.
Da hätte ich gerne mal drin geschmökert.
Liebe Grüße über den großen Teich.
Bald wissen wir, ob Trumpty Dumpty weiter im Weißen Haus sitzt oder nicht.
Ich bin gespannt.
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Gespannt ist zu neutral für mich, liebe Brigitte. Ich kann mir einfach nicht vorstellen, dieses Theater noch weitere 4 Jahre lang auszuhalten.😢
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Didnt grow up with it either, but I read it to my kids when they were little…
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I definitely never heard of it growing up in Germany, but it might have made it into children’s literature there by now.
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Humpty-Dumpty was a part of my childhood, along with a whole assortment of other wonderful characters. I had to smile at the lines from that earlier version Steve mentioned:
“Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.”
I’m glad that didn’t survive, and I’m not surprised. It’s bad poetry — the rhythm dissolves at the end. A better version might be:
“Four-score Men and four-score more,
Left Humpty Dumpty both broken and sore.”
All that aside, I really enjoyed seeing the art. Those Humpties are good eggs, as we say: charming, handsome, amusing, quirky. I confess I like the original best. He reminds me of my patient father, waiting for my mother while she shopped for clothes.
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Thank you, Linda. I liked your suggestion for a different ending to the earlier version. Surely, whatever it was that was broken into pieces, would have been sore.
And I agree with your assortment of adjectives you bestowed on the art. If there are more amusing or quirky humpty-dumpties hiding in the city, I hope to find them.
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Like many, Humpty Dumpty was part of my childhood also. Didn’t stop me from eating eggs. 🙂 Those are delightful creations by your local artists.
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Once the shell is broken, might as well scramble the inside of the egg!
I’m glad you enjoyed our local art.
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It’s a lovely rhyme, and easy to remember.
Since I am Italian and I started studying English only at university, I only got to know it when I started teaching
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I think rhymes are a great way to get to learn a new language, especially if they are catchy and easy to remember.
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Oh yes, I agree with you 🤗🤗🤗
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Hi.
Humpty-Dumpty is known also in my country! Thank you to remind me of this.
Have a nice day!
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That’s interesting, I had no idea. Thank you for letting me and for reading and commenting.
Best wishes,
Tanja
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I love the Chef Humpty! I must show these to my husband. You live in a wonderful city, Tanja!
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I’m glad you enjoyed this post, Nirmala. You have mentioned before that you like where I live (I do, too), and I still hope you and your husband will be able to visit one of these days.
Best,
Tanja
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💖💖
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