Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
In astonomy all (nearly all) the characters in the rhyme are visible in the night sky in the month of April (planting season). This was a rhyme to remind early Europeans (primarily those in England) it was time to plant the crops.
CAT - Leo
FIDDLE - Lyra
COW - Taurus
MOON - literally the MOON
LITTLE DOG - Canis Minor
THE DISH - Constellation Crater
THE SPOON - The Big Dipper (Ursa Major)
Munzly
A nice comforting and ingenious explanation.
However, I'd be interested to know your source for this. Nobody around here in traditional rural Norfolk would know what you meant if you said the "Big Dipper" - The Big Dipper is known as "The Plough" or the "Great Bear" in Britain, so it sounds like an American based explanation.