Who was that mysterious man in the puddle?
April is known for its showers of rain, but it doesn’t stop us occasionally forgetting and getting caught out with no umbrella. One man who got very much caught out by the April weather was Dr Foster, of nursery rhyme fame, who went to Gloucester in a shower of rain, stepped in a puddle right up to his middle and never went there again.
But did you know the tale of Dr Foster was not just a nursery rhyme but an actual historical event? Well, ‘event’ might be a bit strong. Perhaps a historical anecdote.
Dr Foster was likely to have actually been the Plantagenat king , Edward I. He was apparently on his way to Wales, passing through Gloucester, when he fell into a a large, muddy puddle (or got stuck on his horse in a stream and had to be hauled out). Either way, it was a humiliating moment and as a result he never set foot in the town again. It must have been quite a puddle to have come up to his middle, too, because Edward was fondly known as ‘Longshanks’ and stood 6 foot 2 inches tall, quite a height for that period.
So if you must go to Gloucester this April, take a brolly and some wellies and don’t go puddle-jumping.
If you’d like to know more about April showers, read Right as Rain in our April issue, which is all about the words for rain we use in various parts of the UK. Learn to tell your ‘dinge’ from your ‘henting’ from page 22.
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