Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20160609071212/@comment-24534644-20160612212508

It has to do with the origins of the rhyme. It's widely theorized that the rhyme actually refers to a person named Thomas Horner. It's a bit of a long story, but the short version is this: Horner was the steward to a guy named Whiting, who was the last head of the Benedectine House before it and all monasteries was dissolved by Henry VIII. Prior to the destruction of the abbey, Whiting sent Horner to London with a gift for the king, to try and convince him to NOT destroy the abbeys and nationalize church lands. Said gift happened to be a ginormous Christmas pie, and inside of it was a shot ton of deeds to old manors. Before reaching London, Horner was a cheeky son-bitch and helped himself to one of the deeds inside of the pie: the deed in question was to the Mell Manor is Somerset, which included a huge set of lead mines. In fact, the "plum" in the rhyme is thought to be a pun on said lead mines, with it being derived from "plumbum", the Latin word for lead.

The only reason the theory isn't proven as true, despite all the evidence lining up, is because the modern-day descendants insist that their ancestor bought the manor legitimately, and it's all just a coincidence.