Mother Goose contains not stories, but short verses, of the sort grandmothers recite to
small children. Many of them undoubtedly originated in England and were brought by
settlers to New England. I have read that some of them are said to have been satires
on Englidh political events. E.g.:



Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said,
What a good boy am I!

I have read that this is said to refer to an agent of HenryVIII, who when he carried a "pie"
which was a package of deeds to church property the king had seized, he stole a couple
deeds and had them registered in his name.

I am not impressed by alleged difficulties in finding gravestone of Elizabeth Goose. I have
ancestors older than her whose gravestones have disappeared from Copp's Hill.

Edit: I later found this on a different site:

According to legend, Little Jack Horner was actually Thomas Horner, steward to the Abbot of Glastonbury during the reign of King Henry VIII. Rumor had it that the inquisitive king would soon be reaching for some Glastonbury holdings. The nervous Abbot, hoping to appease the royal appetite, sent the king a special gift: a pie containing twelve deeds to manor houses. On his way to London, the not-so-loyal courier Horner stuck his thumb into the pie and extracted the deed for Mells Manor, a plum piece of real estate, where his descendants live to this day.