Nursery Rhymes

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

This popular rhyme probably dates back to the Middle Ages, possibly to the 13th Century,

and relates to a tax imposed by the king on wool.

One-third went to the local lord (the 'master'),

one-third to the church (referred to as the 'dame')

and about a third was for the farmer (the 'little boy who lives down the lane').

It was used by Rudyard Kipling within his poem, The Gentlemen Rankers.

More recently it has been the subject of some controversy in the UK

where nurseries are citing a 'rainbow' sheep instead of 'black' sheep,

as an act of political correctness!!!

Mary, Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty maids all in a row.

This one seems to have come into being long after the period it refers to; Mary Tudor, daughter of king Henry VIII. Various explanations have it as 1) refering to Mary and her childless mariage to Prince Philip II of Spain etc. or alternatively 2)  her garden being a graveyard; silver bells and cockle shells items of torture, and the maids shortened from Maiden, an early form of the guillotine that came into use.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady upon a white horse;

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes

She shall have music wherever she goes.

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it;

Not a penny was there in it,

Only ribbon 'round it.

Lucy Locket was a barmaid at the Cock, in Fleet Street, London,  Lucy discarded one of her lovers (her 'pocket') when she had run through all his money. Kitty Fisher, a noted prostitute, took up with him, even though he had no money. It also taunts Lucy Locket because a "pocket" was what prostitutes kept their money in and would tie to their thigh with a ribbon.

So says Wikipediea, though I head heard that both girls were ladies of the night, and that it was her earnings (pocket) that Lucy had lost, not a lover.

Ruth--Not in the sense I presume you mean, though most of them do have their origins in old English history reflecting persons ( as a form of early parody) or of actual events.

They must be taken within the context of the times they were written, when free speech wasn't an option, and many people couldn't read or write, so in small disguised poems, events and history could be handed down, or between other people at the time. Then over many centuries, their origins get lost to time. So they are both often a comment on historical things, along with a social comment about the times in which they were written.

Ring a ring of roses,

a pocket full of posies,

Tishoo, tishoo,

all fall down.

A description of the plague. The redish rings that marked the skin and the pocket of posies to cover the smell of decaying flesh, finishing with falling down, DEAD.