I never actually realised that Tate and Lyle Golden syrup had a dead liion on it surrounded by bees

[cakeorwine]

And now the "woke" brigade have "forced" them to change it to a lion instead because it offends children,

Woke brigade forces Lyle’s Golden Syrup to ditch iconic logo | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Granted, I haven't had it for a while but I never really looked too much at the image.

I can though see why they might want to update the image - brands do that kind of thing and I am not sure it has anything to do with being "woke".

Reminds me of when toddler DS would ask us to pass the Lion. Took us a while!

Well, it was 1881. Bit of a different time.

But yes. Book of Judges. Samson is maybe wandering or traveling the desert (he’s going through the desert with his wife, is the point) and he sees this dead lion, no big. Then he passes back by the dead lion and sees a bunch of bees swarming around it because they’ve made a comb inside.

He makes this into a riddle for entertainment at a feast/wedding/something, and says, “Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came forth sweetness.”

I think they would have been more familiar with the story in 1881, and I guess they wanted to tie their syrup to the idea of honey? Because people didn’t have another idea of liquid sweetness yet?

Or maybe they were just big fans of dead lions. Tough to say.

I remember learning the story as a child, based on the tin. something about how the bees made honey in the carcass of the dead lion. the proper story is here

https://britishfoodhistory.com/2012/02/01/golden_syrup/

I remember reading in a social history of the 'sugar girls' that Mr Tate and Mr Lyle never met each other.

I remember being really perplexed by this at Sunday school as the riddle would only work if dead lions having a bee hotel in them was a really common occurrence. Maybe it is?

It’s like when the toddlers would play eye spy for ages and the thing they were looking at turned out to be in their mind. Like FFS Samson

Humph, what Philistines...

I remember being really perplexed by this at Sunday school as the riddle would only work if dead lions having a bee hotel in them was a really common occurrence. Maybe it is?

No, he was trying to win a bet. It's not a very edifying story, it escalates badly.

@ErrolTheDragon Wow, it DOES escalate terribly. I got a bit wrong. And I forgot A LOT. Good grief. Samson was a bit of a douchecanoe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson%27s_riddle

That's more of a rigged contest than Bilbo Baggins and his 'What have I got in my pocket?'.

I think you have to like tofu.

That's more of a rigged contest than Bilbo Baggins and his 'What have I got in my pocket?'.

And a hell of a sore loser. Murdering a load of people to pay off the bet... wtf...oh, it was the 'spirit of the LORD'.
Chapter 15 gets worse but at least no Victorian entrepreneur put the poor foxes on a tin.

Well every night is a school night etc...I always thought it was something to do with vaguely brownish flies breeding on rotting corpses and being mistaken for bees - Samson's toddler brain riddle is much more dramatic. What a cheater and what sore loser! He definitely deserved that haircut!

Nowhere in that article is there any evidence that the "woke brigade" had anything to do with it, or that it had anything to do with not scaring children.

Lol. Religion is weird.

I like tofu, but am gender-critical AND recognised the dead lion/bee from the Book of Judges. As pps have said, a deeply unedifying episode in which the frankly lunatic Old Testament God inspires Samson, sulking after the wedding guests won the bet, to go and kill 30 Philistines and steal their clothes to pay his wager, and then, cross with his brand-new wife for telling them the riddle answer, promptly ‘gives her’ to another wedding guest.

Though my other issue is why on earth bees would make honey inside a rotting animal carcass…

I just thought lion was asleep. Thanks a lot op 😒😂

I think I might have to vote for the Tories now incase those lefty woke bastards change this image I had never noticed before. God Save The King.

It's really disturbing that a) this is seen as an acceptable level of journalism, and b) people don't have the critical thinking skills to critique it.

the image reminds me of that film candy man from the 90s
(but I did know the Samson bit)

It’s all a mystery to me.
I did get the biblical reference though.

Every day's a school day. And I didn't even know it was the same Tate with the galleries. Thanks!

I was obsessed with this picture when I was a child, it reminded me of when Aslan died, in fact I'm pretty sure that's what I thought it was about at the time.

It’s reminding me strongly of a big-format illustrated Bible someone gave me when I was young, in which Jesus was both (1) credibly Middle Eastern-looking and (2) very attractive…

Was it the Illustrated Children's Bible which had a very graphic drawing of John the Baptist being be headed??

Syrup: like the honey you’d get if it was made inside a dead lion. Sounds like a winning tagline.