Over the years, these games, chants and verses discovered their way into print, in 16th-century broadsides and chapbooks. In 1697 a re-telling of well-known tales by Charles Perrault, known as His toires, ou contes du temps passe (Histories, or Tales of Past Times), was published. A drawing at the beginning of the book showed an elderly story-teller entertaining a group of children.

A plaque behind her bore the inscription Tales of My Mother Goose. In time, rhyming ditties and songs came to be known as ‘Mother Goose rhymes’ (the term is still utilized in America), but by the very first half from the 19th century the name ‘nursery rhyme’ was more common in Britain. The first British selection of nursery rhymes books was Tom Thumb’s Song Book (1744) – a volume which contained general advice on rearing infants and included rhymes, for example ‘Patty cake, patty cake’, ‘Oranges and lemons’ and ‘London Bridge is broken down.’

Other influential collections include Gammer Gurton’s Garland (1784), James Orchard Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of England (1842) and the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951), by Peter and Iona Opie, which contains what are generally regarded as the standard versions from the rhymes these days.

Nursery rhymes books have long attracted the attention of the best illustrators. The excellent Arthur Rackham has illustrated dozens of books for youngsters, including Mother Goose (1913). Raymond Briggs’ Mother Goose Treasury (1966) – a beautifully presented collection of almost all of the known nursery rhymes – won the artist the Kate Greenaway Medal (awarded annually for the best illustrations in a children’s book).

Other works by leading British illustrators include Quentin Blake’s Nursery Rhyme Book (1983) and also the Helen Oxenbury Nursery Rhyme Book (1986). Blake’s spindly handiwork also decorates Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes (1982) – a deliciously gruesome re-telling of six conventional nursery tales. Nursery rhymes books of England (originally published in 1895 and republished in 1993) is really a selection of 25 old favourites, from ‘Ding Dong Dell’ to ‘Hark! Hark! The Dogs do bark’.