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.

@InSightMars

Jim who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion! I love that one. Know it by rote.

Pah, these have nothing on the French ones...
Il était un petit navire - starving sailors draw lots and choose to eat the youngest
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_%C3%A9tait_un_petit_navire

Legend of St Nicolas - three children get kidnapped, chopped up and salted by a butcher. St Nick comes along 20 years later and puts them back together!

A la claire fontaine - a girl mourns her lost love, lamenting that she regrets not giving him her rosebud when she had the chance (shudder)
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80_la_claire_fontaine

Let's not even talk about Au Clair de la Lune

I'm pretty sure that ring a roses being about the Black Death is an urban myth and there is no evidence to support this.

I love the old nursery rhymes and fairytales- much more fun than singing about cute bunnies and teddy bears!

My favourite story is Rumplestiltskin!

^Ten little naughty boys went out to dine.
One choked his little self, and then there were nine...^

Agatha Christie's "...and Then There Were None" is based on this rhyme. It was originally 10 Little Nggr Boys, then that was considered racist, so changed to 10 Little Indians, which was also then considered racist and is now 10 Little Naughty Boys.

I think no.1 went and hanged himself in the original - certainly does in AC's book.

All The Pretty Little Horses is such a beautiful song... until you get to the second verse.

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry
Go to sleepy, little baby
When you wake you shall have
All the pretty little horses

Way down yonder in the meadow
Lies a poor little lambie
Bees and butterflies, picking out its eyes
Poor little thing crying for his Mammy.

It's from the US, in the days when black slave women had to leave their own children to care for the children of their owners.

My son absolutely loved Humpty Dumpty and is forever singing it while throwing himself into ball pits, off the arm of the sofa, on to our bed from standing up etc etc. At exactly the same time that he grew to love this song his Uncle (my brother) had a serious fall from height at work that left him paraplegic. He won’t stop singing it, I just try not to think too hard about the images it conjures up.

Interesting to hear about Pop Goes the weasel being about alcoholics (is that better or worse than exploding rodents I wonder?) DS has no idea what/where the City Road is so he sings “Up and down the sitting room”, which makes me chuckle.

Tanith Pretty little horses is beautiful, but I don't know that second verse. The version we have is:

Blacks and bays, dapple greys
Coach and six white horses
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry
Go to sleepy little baby

Though that could be read as something similar, rather than types of horses!__

Who Killed Cock Robin.

Must have given countless generations of toddlers nightmares...

@Tanith Thanks for that, I thought it might be based on something. I've heard the title "ten little Indians" before, without knowing it was that! I remember feeling puzzled aged 6 by what "in chancery" meant. The woman reading it out sounded amused by some of the lines, especially "chopped himself in half", and "frizzled up", and sounded very sombre for the last little naughty boy.

Pop goes the weasle means taking your valuables to the porn shop.

The porn shop!? 😂

@Hushnownobodycares OMG I'd forgotten about Who Killed Cock Robin! Just, wow. Even at the age of six I thought it was peculiar. "I, said the sparrow, with my little bow and arrow."

I always thought Humpty Dumpty was Cardinal Wolsey.

There's a French nursery rhyme called Il était un petit navire about a little ship setting sail. In later verses they end up cannibalising the cabin boy

ah coucou cocorico! j'aurais dû RTFT ;-)

Il était une bergère - she ends up killing the kitten for stealing her cheese.

Does anyone remember a book full of traditional children's stories - all very sinister - involving a cock choking on a walnut while his friend tries to get help? Its just at the edge of my memory.

The Highland Lullaby- mother leaves her baby to gather blaeberries and never sees it again. It’s understood but never actually mentioned in the song that the baby is stolen by the fairies.

This lullaby is scary!

Coucou TaMereAPoil! Pas de souci - I forgot about Il était une bergère, it sounds so happy with "petit ron petit ron petit patapon"... But then I would be mad if someone stole my cheese too

It's raining it's pouring,
The old man is snoring,

The poor chap bumps his head (drunk?) and then doesn't wake up the next day.

Sing a song of sixpence an pocket full of rye......down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.

I had read yonks ago that the maid had overheard something whilst hanging up the clothes that amounted to treachery (or treason) and had to be beheaded for repeating it.