The Muffin Man is preserved in the Bodleian Library with lyrics very similar to those used today: <poem> Do you know the muffin man? The muffin man, the muffin man. Do you know the muffin man Who lives in Drury Lane?</poem> Victorian households had many of their fresh foods delivered, such as muffins, which were delivered door-to-door by a muffin man. The "muffin" in question was the bread product known in the United States as English muffins, not the much sweeter cupcake-shaped American variety. Drury Lane is a thoroughfare bordering Covent Garden in London. The rhyme and game appear to have spread to
Jack and Jill (nursery rhyme) theories. Complicated metaphors are often said to exist within the lyrics, as is common with nursery rhyme exegesis. Most explanations post-date the first publication of the rhyme and have no corroborating evidence. These include the suggestion by S. Baring-Gould in the 19th century that the rhyme is related to a narrative in the 13th-century "Prose Edda" section "Gylfaginning" composed by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. In "Gylfaginning", Hjúki and Bil, brother and sister respectively in Norse mythology, were taken up from the earth by the moon (personified as the god Máni) as they were fetching water from the well called Byrgir, bearing