Another day on the internet; another disturbing urban legend threatening to ruin your entire childhood. And this time, it’s got generational juice: if what we’re hearing is right, it’ll upset not just you, but about a thousand of your ancestors, too.
Of course, that’s a pretty big if.
What’s the claim?
Like so many urban legends on the internet, this one focuses on warping a treasured childhood memory. Apparently, the “Muffin Man” nursery rhyme – you know the one; Lord Farquaad recites it in Shrek – is actually recounting a tale of gruesome child murder.
“Which nursery rhyme is about a murderer?” begins one TikTok video from earlier this month. “The one you’re probably thinking of is the Muffin Man.”
Rather than being a fanciful playground rhyme, TikTokker @notmrspock_fact explains, the song tells the story of a real person: “a guy called Frederick Thomas Lynwood,” he says, “in the 1500s, and [he] was said to be a serial killer.”
“He killed children,” the video continues, “and his method of doing so […] was tying bits of string around a beautiful, tasty muffin and drawing the children in before he killed them. Fact.”
But is it a “Fact”? Well, let’s dive a little deeper and see what we find.
Is it true?
This is far from the first time a nursery rhyme has been accused of hiding a more sinister story.
“There have been numerous suggestions about the origin of certain children’s songs and supposed references in them to real historical figures,” Caroline Oates, a librarian at the Folklore Society, told IFLScience via email.
“[For example,] the claim that ‘Ring-a-Roses’ is about the Great Plague,” she said, “when there’s no evidence that it’s as old as that.”
In fact, it’s not even the first time this nursery rhyme has been linked to the sordid tale of child murder. Snopes already fact-checked the story back in February 2021, when another TikTokker – the self-described “CEO of History” Jack Williamson – made the same claim, even down to the name and motive of the supposed murderer.
But, just like us, Snopes found no reason to think the story was true – and helpfully, quite a lot of evidence against it.
“We found no records documenting murders committed by a man of that name, or that he even existed,” Snopes fact-checker Madison Dapcevich wrote. “Williamson did not note his sources, and our own search of the internet returned no legitimate results.”
That’s not to say they found zero records of the story, however: “It appears that the account Williamson gave was based on an entry posted to Uncyclopedia, a parody version of Wikipedia,” Dapcevich noted. “According to the comedic online encyclopedia, Lynwood also went by the nickname of ‘Drury Lane Dicer’ and was known as England’s first documented serial killer.”
There are a few more clues that the Uncyclopedia entry is… more fanciful than factual, shall we say. First of all, there’s a mugshot – and even if cameras had existed in the 16th century, the photo is of Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called “Yorkshire Ripper” who murdered at least 13 women during the 1970s. Secondly, it lists seven adult victims – “rival pastry chefs,” the entry notes – whom he killed via methods ranging from “shaked and baked” to “beaten with a chancla” to straight up “fucked to death”.
Otherwise – that is, outside of this clear joke article and one unsourced medium essay which mixes up the Victorian and Elizabethan periods within the first two paragraphs – there’s simply no evidence that the “Frederick Thomas Lynwood” story is true.
So what’s the real story?
So, if it’s not a 500-year-old reference to a nonexistent murderer, then what is the song’s origin? Well, it’s likely not that complicated: “Children’s songs don’t have to refer to anything,” Oates told IFLScience, “and nonsense is routine and part of the fun.”
“Some may indeed contain satirical references to individuals from the time the song was invented,” she added. “But in most cases not.”
What, then, can we say for sure about the rhyme? Well, it probably doesn’t date from the 16th century: the song “was first recorded in a British manuscript in 1820,” according to the accomplished folklorist duo Iona and Peter Opie in their book The Singing Game, “and was preserved in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.”
References to “the muffin man” earlier than that are likely literally talking about muffin men – that is, the street vendors of the 18th and 19th centuries who would hawk bread, crumpets, and the like to the public. There’s “Sir” Harry Dimsdale, for example – the “the Muffin Man of Soho”, according to the 1813 memoirs of James Caulfield, whom the locals would apparently antagonize “for hours together” despite his being “a poor harmless ideot”.
Then there’s the unnamed “Muffin-Man” of 1754, who was so annoyed at an actor’s portrayal of his profession that he sued for defamation of character. “He inveighed ſeverely againſt Stage-Players,” the record shows, “and urged, it was a very great Hardſhip, that honeſt and worthy Characters ſhould be converted into Ridicule by the Buffoonery of an impertinent Player.”
And here’s a little intriguing tidbit: that play – whatever it was – was performed at the Theatre Royal. In Drury Lane.
It’s not the only reference to funny “muffin man” characters along London’s West End, in fact. By the 1790s, there’s even a standard song for the part – a “favourite ſong,” according to the Monthly Magazine of October 1796, with “univerſal Approbation” for its “ſimple melody and humourous words.”
So, could this be the origin of the song? If the “muffin man” had become a stock comedy character on London’s West End, then it would certainly be a neat explanation for the rhyme – although it wouldn’t necessarily explain why there’s a Dutch version of the same song in which he sells mussels and lives in Scheveningen.
Still, perhaps the most obvious answer is: it’s just a fun little rhyme. After all, if today’s kids can chat about skibidi toilets and sticking out your gyat for the rizzler, then who says our great-great-grandparents couldn’t have made up some nonsense about a muffin man?
