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? 😂

@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!

HRTFT but did you know it wasn’t always “piggy”? It was the N-word.

I remember the first time I heard the old lady who swallowed a fly one.
I had taken my eldest grandchild to a pre school afternoon playgroup type of thing in my local library.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly, why did she swallow a fly, perhaps she wants to die?
By the time that old lady had swallowed an elephant I'm not surprised she died.
Blimey 😲

I thought Piggy On The Railway was originally Paddy On The Railway, as a dig at the Irish navvies who came over to work. My great-grandad was one!

@GrrrlPwr

I thought Mary Mary quite contrary was about Mary Anning the amateur paleontologist?

No, that's She Sells Sea Shells.

This isn't horrific in the same way, but we used to sing "Oh soldier, soldier, won't you marry me?" quite a lot at my (all girls) prep school. The teacher always used to say if a man's making that many excuses, you shouldn't marry him, rather than buy him lots of presents to try to persuade him. We were started on feminism early.

@sashh
That is the subject of a poem by William Watson

THE BALLAD OF SEMERWATER

Deep asleep, deep asleep,
Deep asleep it lies,
The still lake of Semerwater
Under the still skies
And many a fathom
Many a fathom
Many a fathom below,
In a king’s tower and a queens bower
The fishes come and go

Once there stood by Semerwater
A mickle town and tall;
Kings’s tower and queen’s bower
And the wakeman on the wall.
Came a beggar halt and sore:
“I faint for lack of bread!”
Kings tower and queen’s bower
Cast him forth unfed

He knocke’d at the door of eller’s cot,
The eller’s cot in the dale.
They gave him of their oatcake,
They gave him of their ale.
He cursed aloud that city proud,
He cursed it in its pride;
He has cursed it into Semerwater
There to Bide

King’s tower and queen’s bower,
And a mickle town and tall;
By glimmer of scale and gleam of fin
Folk have seen them all.
King tower and queen’s bower,
And weed and reed in the gloom;
And a lost city in Semerwater,
Deep asleep till Doom.

Sir William Watson

We learnt it by heart at primary school and I can still recite it. A lovely if haunting story.

@MichelleScarn

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

Not so much a nursery rhyme but based on true events. I think the whacks are the other way around, Dad got 41

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden

@EnidFrighten

Lots of nursery rhymes are subversive commentary on historical events. Like goosey gander is about Cardinal Wolsey or something? Wouldn't say his prayers = not following church line

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

Nursery rhymes and fairy tales weren't just for kids, they've just become known as that over time. Lots of the old fairy tales were filthy, there were old versions of red riding hood where she did a strip tease for the wolf!

And pop goes the weasel is about pawning the coat off your back to go drinking... Weasel and stoat is cockney rhyming slang for coat.

The weasel was a spinning tool. So pop goes the weasel is ' pawn your tools'

The second verse is " up and down the city streets, in and out the eagle, that's the way the money goes.."
The eagle being a pub in London

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

Yes, definitely! Isn't the man referenced in Goosey, Goosey, Gander a priest found in a priest hole who would not denounce Catholicism? Something like that, anyway!

@Lunaduckdrop

Is this one about Henry viii and Katherine of Aragon?

"I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear
The king of Spain's daughter came to visit me
And all for the sake of my little nut tree"

I can hardly believe it now but we were taught this one in primary school! The tune is similar to Baa Baa Black Sheep but is more ornamented

Why can't you believe you were taught it at school?

Because I can spot inuendo now!

I know it's a fairy tale and not a nursery rhyme, but Sleeping Beauty - the original story is

When the Prince ''Charming'' swings by the castle and finds her asleep he doesn't just go in for a kiss. He rapes her and, all while she is still asleep she is pregnant and gives birth to twins. She only wakes up when one of the twins sucks her finger and sucks out the tip of the needle!

Not a traditional one, but a more modern song that seems to be popular at toddler groups, that jolly tune "I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor" starts off with "oh no, he's up to my toes" ends with "oh dread, he's up to my...gulp"

@Laiste how horrible! I knew Rapunzel had twins, but that was consensual.

Wow, so many fascinating stories behind these. I feel like I've had a history lesson of the most gruesome type today

I remember my gran teaching me to recite this back in the 80s:

^Murder, murder polis
three stairs up,
the wuman in the middle hoose
hut me wae a cup
ma heed’s aw broken, ma face is aw cut
murder polis murder polis three stairs up^

@Schmoozer

…… couldn’t get up in the morning …. He went to toilet and pulled the chain And out came a Choo choo train 🚂

Omg its real!!! Someone else knows it! I used to think I made it up or imagined there being something about a train...

Remember this one?
"You know last night?
You know the night before?
There came three pussycats knocking at the door.
I went downstairs
To let them in,
They hit me on the head with a rolling pin!"

Not everyone would agree with a fair bit of this, but it's a sort of 'common denominator' view:
www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150610-the-dark-side-of-nursery-rhymes
This has an interesting table of first-recorded dates of rhymes and some suggestions for possible meanings:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhyme
Of course, rhymes can be much older than the date they were first described in print.

WONDERFULLY useful article here:
www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791231/obo-9780199791231-0124.xml

@GrrrlPwr

Georgie pordgy pudding and pie Kissed the girls and made them cry When the boys came out to play Georgie pordgy ran away

Pretty bad one

Sorry if has already been said as I've not RTFT yet but I'm pretty sure Georgie Porgie was about the great fire of London. It started on Pudding Lane and ended on Pye Corner. Georgie was the fire. 'The boys' being those who tried to put out the fire.

@Clawdy

Remember this one? "You know last night? You know the night before? There came three pussycats knocking at the door. I went downstairs To let them in, They hit me on the head with a rolling pin!"

Ohhhhhhh I remember there was another that ended with a bloke being hit on the end of a rolling pin, but I think the culprit was his wife!

Can't remember anything else about it though

What about the Shockheaded Peter rhymes? Cautionary tales translated from the German Strewwelpeter

Favourites were ‘Augustus was a chubby lad, fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had......’ then he stops eating his soup, fades away and dies. On his grave a soup tureen serves as a headstone.

And the Great Long Red Legged Scissorman who comes and cuts off Conrad’s thumbs because he wouldn’t stop sucking them. Hideous illustration with thumbs dripping lots of blood.

I loved them and in time duly read them to my own DSs who were equally entranced.

ItsNotNormalLove - well fancy that! Thanks for the info

@scottishnames
I like the Wikipedia entries. Basically, pretty much all meanings and origins are speculative except ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ which had a known author.