The muffin man, it's said, is the nickname of a 16th century child murderer. The ditty was supposedly written to warn kids away from Drury Lane, where a notorious muffin man would lure them to their deaths with sweet food.
His name was Frederic Thomas Lynwood, and he was born in 1563 and died in 1612.
Between the years 1589 and 1598, Lynwood murdered 15 children. His shop was a popular spot for kids to visit, where they would run and cause havoc. What unsupervised kid wouldn’t run around a bakery? Supposedly, Lynwood wanted them to stay away from his shop, so he devised a vicious plan. He lured children intentionally to his shop by pulling a muffin on a string. Once inside, he would knock them out and then kill them.
