Violent children's rhymes.

[Mysterian]

Three blind mice. Pretty bad. Cutting the tails off 3 mice with a disability.

Jack and Jill. Lots of bad tumbles and crown breaking, botched first aid, and in the later verses Jill gets beaten for "laughing at Jack's disaster".

Pop goes the weasel. Enough said? Exploding weasels sound awful. Particularly once they've eaten all that treacle and rice.

Lucy Locket, apparently about Courtesans. Her "pocket" was something else!

Xyz is no good, chop her up for firewood
When she's dead, boil her head and make her into gingerbread 🤫😃

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe - she beats and half starves her poor children!

Also that one about the guy who keeps his wife locked up in a pumpkin shell.

And don't get me started on Wee Willie Winkie!

I second PP ring a ring a roses about the Black Death the ring of roses was a circle of red spots that used to get when you caught the black death

It seems most nursery rhymes about trying to teach children very mcarb way of remembering history from the turn-of-the-century in most cases.
I wonder what nursery rhymes we could write now to teach children about our present times that will soon become history.
The Berlin wall
Hiroshima , Nagasaki
Vietnam
the Falklands
Aids
And other cheerful subjects

According to Wikipedia, most of the things we think nursery rhymes are about are unfounded speculation. For instance, Jack and Jill predates the French Revolution and the Humpty Dumpty cannon thing is based on a spoof of the actual rhyme.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhyme

I'm kind of disappointed.

Edward Lear's poem about Matilda who told lies and was burned to death. Always loved that one.

there was an old woman who lived in a shoe. shocking!

I don't know the actual words to the old woman who lived in a shoe. I did once, but every time I try to recall it now, I just get the lenor advert.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
To keep her kids fresh, she knew what to do....

Awh please Too much PC in this world and pop goes the weasel goes back to the time when people used weaving looms The weasel is like a shuttle that delivers the yarn from one side of the loom to the other and the pop refers to the sound it made when it hits off the side The half a pound of tupenny rice and treacle refers to the wages being spent on food and how much it costs

Peter Peter pumpkin eater, keeps his wife inside a pumpkin. That’s over the top controlling.

TonTonMacoute

Stuwwelpeter was the first thing that came into my mind, especially Tom Suck a thumb.
The pictures freaked me out ( even as an adult) and the content is horrendous!

struwwelpeter in fact, and its Little suck a thumb.

The illustrations are the stuff of nightmares

Many nursery rhymes were apparently political, or about current events, in eras where speaking out about anything at all controversial, or liable to upset anyone powerful, was all too likely to get your head chopped off.

Little piggys go to market all the time

Taffy was an Irish man
Taffy was a thief
Taffy came to my house
And stole a leg of beef

Pretty sure there were about ten verses to that one

Never mind, Taffy was a Welshman
Still just as rude

Humpty Dumpy. I hated that one so depressing. Especially the part about him falling off a wall. Why should we laugh at other's misfortunes?

Oh gosh I'm just remembering a delightful song from a children's nursery song cassette tape I had when I was little:

Piggy on the railway, picking up stones
along came an engine and broke Piggy's bones
'Oh!' said Piggy, 'That's not fair!'
'So!' said the engine, 'I don't care!'

It was Hilaire Belloc who wrote the Cautionary Tale about Matilda who told lies. She was among among other very naughty children who ate string and died, slammed doors and died and ran away from nurse and died (that one got eaten by a lion).

Ha ha, I like grim children's rhymes and stories. Here are some I know:

Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders
Warming her pretty little toes
Her mother came and caught her
And whipped her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.

Google this one, if you dare:
A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs...

As a child in the 80s, I had a record of "rhymes to remember": it seems I do remember many of them word for word! They were read out in very BBC-style posh voices, or middle class teenage voices, which made them all the funnier!

There was a man: he went mad!
He jumped into a paper bag. (Sound of paper bag)
The paper bag was too narrow.
He jumped into a wheelbarrow. (Sound of wheelbarrow)
The wheelbarrow took on fire.
He jumped into a cow byre. (Moooo!)
The cow byre was too nasty.
He jumped into an apple pasty. (Sound of apple)
The apple pasty was too sweet.
He jumped into Chester-Le-Street.
Chester-Le-Street was full of stones.
He fell down and broke his bones. (Sound of skittles falling over)

Ten little naughty boys went out to dine.
One choked his little self, and then there were nine.
Nine little naughty boys stayed up very late.
One overslept, and then there were eight.
Eight little naughty boys went down to Devon.
One said he'd stay there, and then there were seven.
Seven little naughty boys chopping up sticks.
One chopped himself in half, and then there were six.
Six little naughty boys playing with a hive.
A bee stung one, and then there were five.
Five little naughty boys going in to law.
One got in chancery, and then there were four.
Four little naughty boys went out to sea.
A red herring swallowed one, and then there were three.
Three little naughty boys went to the zoo.
A big bear hugged one, and then there were two.
Two little naughty boys sitting in the sun.
One got frizzled up, and then there was one.
One little naughty boy living all alone.
He got married, and then there none.

This Roger Mcgough poem was standard reading at my school but it's pretty shocking by today's standards

www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lesson/

Same as Kanz, I always thought pop goes the weasel was a reference to the shuttle on a loom, something about the cotton mills work of the time the rhyme was written.

I thought it was about journalists in the pubs on City Road

Maybe that verse was added later?

Bloody hell GoldenBuns that one about the woman in the woods - wtf! It's like if Game of thrones did nursery rhymes 😮😂