"I now formally apologize to Piers Plowman [I love your name btw] and others for implying that your interesting comments about linguistics were off topic."
Don't worry, I'm not that sensitive. I've never been that bothered about threads going off-topic, here or elsewhere.
I chose the name "Piers Plowman" over on a message board for the British radio soap opera "The Archers", where something vaguely agricultural would be suitable. Since I was shamelessly plugging some things I posted over there when I first came here (having found out about Mudcat from other posters over there when I asked something about the song "English Country Gardens"), I thought I might as well keep the name.
I've never actually read "Piers Plowman", although I discovered I have it paperback, when I was going through my cartons of books some months ago.
For what it's worth, I don't think folklore can be separated from language and perhaps it serves some useful purpose to clear up misconceptions about language, though what one considers a misconception depends on one's point of view, of course.
Children's rhymes are hardly my area of expertise and I'd never heard of this family of rhymes. I would have just assumed that the brand of bubble gum had been there first.