Mary Had A Little Lamb and It was REAL.                

                            You know what? The most famous nursery rhyme which we used to sing from our childhood, "Mary had a little lamb", had a story behind it. I came to know about this from today's general essay hour while we were dealing with children's literature. I already knew that some other nursery rhymes had stories behind it like, "Baa Baa black sheep" was based on feudalism, "Ring a ring a roses" was based on black death, like that. But I never knew there was a story behind one of the most favorite children's rhyme--"Mary had a little lamb". Ma'am read to us the story behind the rhyme. I will just summarize the story here for you and attach the link through which you can access the complete story. There was a real Mary who had a little lamb with her. One day while she was helping her father with farm chores they found two new born lambs and one of them was abandoned by its mother, it was very sick and about to die. When she continuously asked for permission to look after the lamb, her father and mother finally allowed Mary to take care of it. Thus, through her continues effort, love, and care, the lamb recovered fast. It was able to stand on its own and also became very much attached to Mary. One day when Mary and her brother went to school, this lamb also followed them and they were not able to send it back. Then, she kept her pet under the desk and covered it with a blanket. But, when the teacher called Mary to the front to recite a lesson, this lamb also popped out following Mary. This led to complete noise and laughter in the class. And later, one of her senior, John Roulstone, came and gave her a poem that he had written. It was the rhyme which we later learnt in our nursery schools. There is more to the story which you can read from the following link.

LINK :https://modernfarmer.com/2017/12/true-story-behind-mary-little-lamb/