Ghost Tales by the Fireside - True Ghost Stories Podcast

Jack and Jill Hill: The Dark Somerset Story Behind the Nursery Rhyme

August 31, 2026·9 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Everyone knows the nursery rhyme. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.But in the Somerset village of Kilmersdon, an old local legend gives those familiar words a much darker meaning.Here, Jack and Jill are remembered not as children, but as young lovers. The story tells of a secret pregnancy, a fatal falling stone, a child left behind and a local surname supposedly born from the tragedy.And Kilmersdon has something else.A real Jack and Jill Hill — and at the top of it, a genuine medieval well.So could one of Britain's best-known nursery rhymes preserve the memory of a real Somerset tragedy?In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside: Dark Folklore, we follow the old path through Kilmersdon and discover where history ends and one of Somerset's strangest legends begins.Website: www.ghosttales.co.ukSupport Ghost Tales by the Fireside on Buy Me a Coffee.

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