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? 😂

“Mary Mary quite contrary is about Mary Queen of Scots and torture, silver bells and cockle shells are things like thumbscrews and pretty maids are iron maidens”

But iron maidens are a Victorian invention!

*or Georgian, but nineteenth century

These two I recall from an old book I had as a child, they were accompanied with disturbing pictures aswell.

'Tom tom the pipers son
stole a pig and away did run
The pig was eat and tom was beat
and tom went roaring down the street'

'I had a little pony his name was dapple grey
I lent him to a lady to ride a mile away
she whipped him, she lashed him
she rode him through the mire
I wouldn't lend my pony now
for all the lady's mire'

There's no record of Mary Mary Quite Contrary before the 18th century.

@Grayskelly - this is a great little podcast - Dark & Twisty Tales. This is the Juniper Tree episode - so warped but a good listen.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-juniper-tree/id1350637491?i=1000432655153

@VincaMinor I remember that Ladybird book well and spent ages looking at the pictures as a young child! The Old Woman who lived in a Shoe illustration depicted a row of children queuing up to be whipped by a spinning wheel converted into a whipping machine. There was also

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

Goosey goosey Gander is supposed to be about the reformation and the search for Catholic priests. The priest holes were hidden across the house. The one at Oxburgh is behind the "king's" bedroom.

We had a book of nursery rhymes illustrated by Raymond Briggs. You see Jill getting a severe whipping for laughing at Jack’s disaster, but the best illustration is the not very pretty milkmaid waving two fingers as she goes off saying ‘Nobody asked you, Sir’

I must have been a very unimaginative child. I remember all of these and never batted an eyelid

Fascinating thread! What about 'Oranges and Lemons' which ends like this:

"Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. Chop, Chop, CHOP".

Such lovely innocent rhymes for our kiddies. .

"there was a little bird, who's name was Ends. Opened up the window and in flew Enza" (influenza). Apparently very popular during Spanish Flu

@KaptainKaveman

Fascinating thread! What about 'Oranges and Lemons' which ends like this:

"Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. Chop, Chop, CHOP".

Such lovely innocent rhymes for our kiddies. .

Oh yes, that was a favourite children’s party game:

Here comes the candle to light you to bed
Here comes the chopper to chop off your head
Chip, chop, chip, chop,
The last man’s DEAD!
[everyone runs away screaming!]

@TheMarzipanDildo

“Mary Mary quite contrary is about Mary Queen of Scots and torture, silver bells and cockle shells are things like thumbscrews and pretty maids are iron maidens”

But iron maidens are a Victorian invention!

‘Pretty maids’ refers to the guillotine. It was called the maiden back then. It was first published in 1744 by Tommy Thumb but this was more him writing it down - it had been sung for hundreds of years before that.

@MartyHart

There's no record of Mary Mary Quite Contrary before the 18th century.

Tommy Thumb published it in 1744 but he didn’t invent it, simply wrote it down. It was sung for hundreds of years before that.

I've got the Grimm book of Fairy Tales - and they are quite grim. Cinderella's step sisters cutting their toes off to get the shoe on, Rapunzel's prince falling into a thorn bush and the thorns poking into his eyes blinding him. I think all the older talked and rhymes are a bit gruesome

“‘Pretty maids’ refers to the guillotine. It was called the maiden back then. It was first published in 1744 by Tommy Thumb but this was more him writing it down - it had been sung for hundreds of years before that.”

Ok that makes more sense. I had it in my head that Mary Mary Quite Contrary was about Bloody Mary rather than Mary Queen of Scots, and the “pretty maids” referred to the actual pretty maids that Phillip of Spain was cheating on her with. Or, darker, the fact that she had had a few miscarriages.

The thing about nursery rhymes is that they are very difficult to trace back.

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur

Little rabbit foo foo. That was it.

One of the favourite books at my kids school currently!!

@Rubyupbeat

We grew up with all these rhymes, along with grimms fairy tales and they never affected us. Adults look too deeply into these things.

Funnily enough, my daughter was the one who pointed these things out to me when she was...I don't know 5 or 6 or so. Same with many children's storybooks that she just had to pick apart trying to reason her way out of, instead of sleeping off like other children.😅

Not surprising that we've had analytical discussions about many things since she was a child.

Re stories and nursery rhymes being old there is a lake in Yorkshire called lake semerwater.

Locals told stories of there being a village or town that was flooded (possibly due to an angel dressed as a beggar who was not offered hospitality) and became the lake, the story was passed down as oral history, often with people claiming a grandparent had been a child when it happened etc etc.

In 1937 there was a draught, and low and behold archeologists found an Iron age settlement and evidence of earlier occupation.

I've thought this alot since have DD1 - the monkeys are falling out of the bed, the children are falling down dead presumably, the bunnies are sleeping and very still, are they ill (sounds like they are dead) and poor old incy wincy spider isn't having a great time of it really. Quite depressing!

Reminds me of an Irish schoolyard song which is pretty dark: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeelaWeelaa_Walya

Jack and Gill were both measures of spirits. A Gill was double a Jack, they reduced the size of a Jack and Gill came tumbling after.

Baa baa Black sheep.
Black wool was worth less than white as it wasn't able to be dyed.
The master was the tax man
The dame was the landlord or something
The boy was the farmer. Basically he only got a 3rd of his value.

Incy Wincy is Anansi and climbing up the waterspout is how slaves ran away. As their was no guarantee the children of slaves would be raised by their mums (they were often sold from 5/6) the songs were taught like instruction manuals to make sure they knew how to escape.

@Sootybear

I wonder what this one was about? Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater Had a wife and couldn't keep her Put her in a pumpkin shell And there he kept her very well.

And of course the old woman who lived in a shoe!

Re Peter, Peter American academics have argued that it’s all about keeping your wife (barefoot and) pregnant so she can’t run away. I don’t see it myself. I take ‘keep’ to mean provide for and she was happy to live in style eating pumpkin in the pumpkin shell.

@Gwlondon

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….”?

It’s Time warp from the Rocky Horror Show.