We all grew up with nursery rhymes, your parents sang it to you and you sing it to your children. These innocent rhymes that parents all around the world sing to their kids have gruesome backstories. I am sure you never expected rhymes to contain coded messages that indicate death, alcohol and punishment.
This started when I was trying to teach my daughter some nursery rhymes.
Ring around the rosie or Ring a Ring o Roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down
I tried to explain the meaning to her and it sounded strange. A nursery rhyme, i knew so so well and yet did not make any sense. Does Rosie mean rose flower or rose garden perhaps? what is pocket full of posies? and even more strangely Ashes! Ashes! I started digging to understand the true meaning of this mindless rhyme that i knew so well. This is stuff for nightmares – There was plague in London in 1665. A plague so great that it killed nearly 15% of the population. The “Rosie” is the rash that is developed on the skin of the plague sufferers. “Posies” are bunch of herbs or flowers that one needed to carry to avoid stench caused by the plague, hence “A pocket full of posies”. “Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down” well it means death caused by the plague. (I told you this is stuff for nightmares). I gave up explaining this to my 3 yr old.
Oh it gets better,
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And none for the little boy
Who lives down the lane (original lyrics)
And one for the little boy, who lives down the lane (changed lyrics)
This one is not so bad you might say, until you learn that the original was “And none for the little boy who cries down the lane”
This one is about taxes levied on wool during medieval trade. In medieval England, wool trade was a booming business. It was used to produce cloth and everyone was raising sheep. Even wealth was being counted in terms of how many sheep owned. In 13th century, King Edward imposed wool tax. Under the new rules, a third went to him “one for the master” , a third went to the church “One for the dame” and the last to the farmer. Therefore there was nothing left for little shepherd boy. Also black sheep was considered bad luck because their fleeces cannot be dyed and were valued less.
The next rhyme is applicable for a drunkard or about death. Either way it cannot be a simple kids rhyme
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
“Humpty Dumpty” was a popular drink made of brandy and ale. Possibly referring to a drunk person sitting on a wall and injuring himself. There is another theory, “Humpty Dumpty” is a slang for Hunchback. There was King Richard III often called hunchback king. At the battle of Bosworth, his horse named “wall” abandoned him. The king fell down from the horse and supposedly hacked to death. It gets better, there is one more theory, during English Civil war there was a cannon named “Humpty Dumpty”. The cannon was very powerful, sat on top of church tower and killed hundreds of parliamentarian troops. Humpty’s great fall came when the church tower was eventually blown up. The kings men tried to defend the tower but could not defend it without Humpty’s fire power.
You must know this one
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.
and goes on…
This rhyme originated at Wakefield prison in England where female inmates had to exercise around the mulberry tree in the prison yard.
You would be surprised a lot of the rhymes “Jack and Jill”, “Rock-a-bye Baby”, “Goosey Goosey Gander” have some inner meaning which relates to taxes, kings, religion and other stuff definitely not for kids.
Its funny that we don’t bat an eye while teaching kids these weird rhymes. I am not saying that we should not teach them, it interesting to see how mindless we really are as people!!
-Raghav
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