Horrific nursery rhythms

[CrimeJunkie01]

Inspired by the sleeping bunnies thread, I'm wondering if anyone has been reminded of hideous nursery rhythms?

My favourite as a child was:

"In a cottage in a wood,
A little old man, at the window stood.
Saw a rabbit running by, knocking at the door.
Help me, help me, help me, he said.
All those guns will shoot me dead.
Come little rabbit come to me.
Happy we shall be."

All this is done with actions to go along with it, including shooting at a rabbit!!

Another is
" Rock a bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all."

Goodness me, that's without finally learning exactly which market the piggy went to!!

Why are nursery rhythms so dark? 😂

This one pops up on Alexa if I ask her to play nursery rhymes...

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

Piggy on the railway, picking up stones,
Along came an engine, and broke piggy’s bones,
Oh! Said piggy, that’s not fair!
Oh said the engine driver, I don’t care!

This horrific little rhyme was on a cassette of nursery rhymes I had as a small child. It had a book accompaniment with illustrations!

I liked:
Heeper Peeper Chimney sweeper
Had a wife and couldn't keep her
Had another, didn't love her
Up the chimney he did shove her

We had a picture nursery rhyme book showing a pair of legs sticking out the chimney 😆

I always thought "ladybird, ladybird fly away home, your house is burnt down and your children are gone" was a particularly horrible nursery rhyme.

@HalloweenScrooge

Piggy on the railway, picking up stones, Along came an engine, and broke piggy’s bones, Oh! Said piggy, that’s not fair! Oh said the engine driver, I don’t care!

This horrific little rhyme was on a cassette of nursery rhymes I had as a small child. It had a book accompaniment with illustrations!

Oooh never heard that one!! I genuinely can't imagine how you would illustrate that!!! 🤣

@SkyeSkye

This one pops up on Alexa if I ask her to play nursery rhymes...

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

Ooh, I'd forgotten this one too!! My Nana used to sing that to us!!

Ring a ring a roses is about the plague. I can’t believe we have a rhyme that’s so old. And then I wonder will we have rhymes from this period? Or will we just have song lyrics that generations after us will know.
Will the Macarena be known years from now? “Don’t blame it on the sunshine…” was there a dance with “let’s do the time walk again….”?

Its raining, its pouring,
the old man is snoring
He went to bed and bumped his head,
And didn't get up in the morning.

I'm starting to wonder if there are any that aren't based on something horrific?!

@CrimeJunkie01 something like this: twitter.com/catherine_hann/status/1104337145509097479?s=21

@SkyeSkye

This one pops up on Alexa if I ask her to play nursery rhymes...

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

The stairs went crack And broke the old man's back And all the little ducks said quack quack quack

@dylanthedragon

Its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring He went to bed and bumped his head, And didn't get up in the morning.

It's 'couldn't get up til morning'

That the ending I remember... But I would not be surprised if it was that he didn't get up!!

Horrified to find my 3yo watching this nursery rhyme on her Amazon fire - there was an old lady who swallowed a fly ends like this:

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’s dead
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse;
…She’s dead, of course!

Some seriously grim German ones too. I especially like Maikäfer, which is quite like the ladybird one upthread!

Most nursery rules weren’t written for children at all which is why a lot are political or dark themes.

Three blind mice.
Three blind mice.
See how they run.
See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a thing in your life?
As three blind mice.

@my8thMNusername it's couldn't get up in the morning.

Copied that from google lyrics but it's 'perhaps she'll die' to rhyme with fly

The 'she's dead of course!' .. wtf

The next one, three blind mice, wasn't much better!

I had ‘and couldn’t get up in the morning’!

Some of them are very old. Isn’t Mary Mary quite contrary about Mary queen of scots? Her silver bells and cockle shells refer to her Catholicism.

[quote HunterHearstHelmsley]@my8thMNusername it's couldn't get up in the morning.[/quote]
My dc's tablet must have a PG version after all

Or lizzie Borden
Lizzie Borden took an ace
And gave her father 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her mother 41..

Nice

@my8thMNusername

Horrified to find my 3yo watching this nursery rhyme on her Amazon fire - there was an old lady who swallowed a fly ends like this:

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’s dead
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse;
…She’s dead, of course!

Why horrified?

You should read some of the original versions of fairy stories as well. In Snow White the evil Queen is made to wear a pair of red hot iron shoes and dance until she dies....