Humpty dumpty

The rhyme of humpty-dumpty is commonly supposed to have started as a riddle: "Which object tumbles off a wall and, having fallen, thwarts the best efforts of even the bravest souls to restore it?"

But is "egg" necessarily the answer? The clues in the rhyme are actually rather vague. An egg isn’t the first thing that springs to mind in this situation. Leaving an egg casually upon a wall is unusual, unless the work of a distracted cuckoo. And were one’s mislaid egg to tumble off said wall, you’d hardly ask a passing troupe of soldiers on horseback to have a go at restoring it to its former state, would you? Hooves and swords all over the place. The misfortunate egg could as easily be a watermelon, a Ming vase or a balloon full of giblets, any of which would tax the household cavalry’s engineering skills, and have just as much chance of being on a wall to begin with.

Humpty's depiction as an anthropomorphised egg in the Tenniel illustrations to Alice In Wonderland fixed the image which has endured ever since. But let us consider some of the alternative possibilities for the identity of this mystery object.

In Scotland, “lumpty-numpty” is a drunken idiot who keeps hitting his head. In parts of Cornwall, “crumpety-bumpety” is either a randy baker or a clumsy barmaid. There have been suggestions that humpty-dumpty was once a dialect term for: a dandelion clock, a toadstool, a snail or a wasp’s nest, all more natural wall-dwellers.

Humpty-dumpty has also been used to describe someone who fouls themselves during sex. But let's not go there.