The guidebook I picked up on my recent visit to Broughton Castle provides an interesting anecdote in relation to the Fiennes family name:
Local legend has it that the famous nursery rhyme was originally ‘Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross to see a Fiennes lady ride on a white horse’ – as opposed ‘to see a white lady’
“Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross
To see a Fiennes lady rie on a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes”
As a child we sang to “see a fine lady”. Not quite the right translation either.
That is the correct translation of the nursery rhyme that we know by tradition.
Might be so, might not.
Have you read the history of the family?