Lighthearted please settle a disagreement

[Zeroperspective]

A friend and I were having a random conversation about Humpty Dumpty (cos why not 🤷🏼‍♀️) and a disagreement occurred so we are turning to you oh wise mumsnetters!

Person A believes HD is an egg.
Person B states there is no evidence to back up this assumption.
Person A agrees there is nothing factual but asserts its a widely held belief that HD is in fact an egg.
Person B will not state what they believe HD to be other than a person/object able to "sit" on a wall

So please can you vote and/or comment on what you believe Humpty Dumpty is!

YABU HD is an egg
YANBU it is unknown what HD is but I don't believe it's an egg

I'll reveal if I am Person A or B after the vote closes

As far as I know -It is a type of gun, wide and short, fires cannon balls - but isn't as long as a normal cannon. That is what I have always believed.

I can't really vote for either of your options, because HD is not an egg, and neither is it unknown what HD is, it is a short cannon.

I remember it being an egg - but I'm sure it was because of a smarties Easter egg 🤔🤣

I think it's safe to say that both A and B are right. We assume egg but it actually never says what it is in the rhyme!

He may look egg like but humpty Dumpty originallly was meant to be a cannon lol

Ah well I was going with an egg from Alice Through the Looking Glass where Alice is trying to get an egg from a shelf and it gets further and further away and turns into HD on the wall - cue general conversation and HD then falling off the wall. But maybe the story came after the rhyme?!

My Who Really Killed Cock Robin book posits that Humpty
Dumpty was a young woman. There are similar rhymes all over Europe apparently. And it's all about sex.

I always thought Humpy Dumpty was an egg. Mainly because of the book of nursery rhymes we had that showed he was an egg.
Agree the rhyme doesn't actually say that.

I have just googled it, and among the many sites giving the "gun" explanation, there is one claiming it was Richard III, because his horse was called "wall" and he fell off it at the battle of Bosworth. Also he was rounded

Not an egg

An 18th century mortar, I thought.

For all that they were great lumps of metal, they were relatively fragile in service, so could shatter from an indirect hit.

As promised now the vote has closed, I'm Person A but both myself and Person B have found the comments very interesting and neither of us were aware of the canon do we've both learnt something new! I'm still saying HD is an egg though lol

In all the books I have seen of him he is an egg. Also, he is an egg in Puss in Boots.

He's an egg.

At last - some serious discussion on Mumsnet ......

It is the humpbacked King Richard I believe.