Nursery Rhymes-The Darker Side

Did u ever wonder where some nursery ryhmes came from? Most of them were old songs that were made up after a tragic event. Such as Ring Around The Rosey, having to do with The Black Death that struck Europe. And did u ever notice that most are very vilent? o.o

Hey you on to something. And I guess that the gingerbread man had something to do with zombies rising from the grave.

R U Serious? o.o The Gingerbread man had something to do with somebody rising from the dead?

Well probably not but its possible that it has something to do with the whole don't play God kind of idea. I mean gingerbread man comes to life, runs off and wreaks havoc upon the townspeople. Sounds like it was something made up by the church.

I see. Well, ring around the rosey is darker.

Ring around the rosey: When the people got sick, they had rashes and rosey cheeks and such.

Pocket Full Of Posies: The people thought that if they walked around with flowers, they would get better.

Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down: They used to burn the dead bodies when they died.

Ladybug, Ladybug
Quickly come home
Your Children are burning
your house is no more!

(that one always stuck with me...)

Or this one...

Peter Peter, Pumpkin eater
Had a wife but couldn't keep her
So he locked her in a Pumpkin Shell
and there he kept her very well!



And that's just off the top of my head...there's some sick stiff in those old rhymes....

Ever read the "Politically Correct Fairytales"? That's hysterical...

eep. o.o Those I have heard and I always thought those were violent. o.o but anyway,

No. I haven't read em. They're funny huh?

ring a ring or roses - the marks or lesions u got from the black death
pocket full of poses - flowers to keep the smell of dead bodies away
a tissue a tissue - first symptoms of the plague are cold like
we all fall down - dead

plague

Another one is'' London Bridge is falling down''

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Living on London Bridge was hazardous. In 1212, a disaster occurred when a crowd of people were trapped on the bridge between two fires. Many were burned to death. Every so often, barges would break loose and crash into the bridge putting prows through walls of houses. Fire again struck the Bridge in 1623. This fire started when a maidservant left a pail of ashes under wooden stairs. Forty-three houses were destroyed and many of the shops were also burned and damaged. Soon the merchants began moving, as the bridge was getting dilapidated. In 1666 a fire broke out in the King Bakery in Pudding Lane. It swept through the city and onto the bridge. The foundations of the bridge were loosened and the fire had caused the stonework arches to weaken. The bridge was declared a public nuisance and on July 4th 1823. It was demolished


Humpty Dumpty was another good one

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the Kings horses

And all the Kings men

Couldn�t put Humpty together again


Humpty Dumpty was a common �nickname� for people of large proportions in the 1400�s. This rhyme refers to King Richard III of England. The Battle of Bosworth took place on 22nd August 1485. It was the fight for the throne between King Richard III and the head of the house of Lancaster, Henry Tudor. Richard sat on his horse atop Ambion Hill ready for battle, directing his armies when he was murdered. Other suggested origins are that During the English Civil War (1642-49) �Humpty Dumpty� was the name for a powerful cannon. It was mounted atop the St. Marys Wall Church in Colchester to defend the city against siege in the summer of 1648. (Colchester was a Parliamentarian stronghold but had been captured by Royalists and they held it for 11 weeks.) The enemy hit the church tower and the top was blown off. �Humpty Dumpty� fell off and tumbled to the ground. The King�s men tried to fix him but to no avail.

Another suggests that �Humpty Dumpty� refers to the tale of Charles I (Humpty Dumpty) of England. He was toppled by the Puritan majority in Parliament (the great fall). The King�s army (Cavaliers) could not restore his power. Charles I was executed by the Roundheads (�couldn�t put back together again�).

Heres a link to some origins of other nursery rhymes

nursery rhymes

Here's a good site that tells you the origins of some nursery rhymes

www.rhymes.org.uk...

And what are we trying to say exactly? is this just a "did you know that..." thread or is it about a conspericasy regarding these rhymes with double meanings?


----pineapple

Its like fairytales- they have been all disney-nified.

The orginal Grimms fairytales- anyone ever read them?

Yes. The original Grimm tales are quite violent. In cinderella the one of the wicked step sisters cuts off her toe, the other a piece of her heal. Not to mention in the end both of them get their eyes pecked out by a bird. What a lovely story to tell children!


I heard something about disney.... ummm... I think it was about all the mother characters in almost all of the movies being dead or something.

I'll try to find a link.

Here's that link that I think may give some info on what I'm referring to.

www.cwluherstory.com...



[edit on 23-7-2004 by God]

Its kinda sad since now children at such a young age are being exposed to so much violence at least at a subliminal level this makes them so prone to violent acts. What suprises me is that how come parents still tell this tales to thier children ex. Littlle Red Riding Hood. her grandma got eacten by a wolf now that is nothing we should be telling children sure they need to know that life is not easy but at such a young age exposing to that kind of violence kinda makes accostume to the violence shown by the media

Jack and Jill and going up the hill (and broke her crown) is supposed to be about Jill losing her virginity.. .great pre school story.

Originally posted by jeeze louise
Jack and Jill and going up the hill (and broke her crown) is supposed to be about Jill losing her virginity

how?

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke HIS crown,
and Jill came tumbling after

Originally posted by Gryffen
ring a ring or roses - the marks or lesions u got from the black death
pocket full of poses - flowers to keep the smell of dead bodies away
a tissue a tissue - first symptoms of the plague are cold like
we all fall down - dead

Actually this has been debunked:

Although folklorists have been collecting and setting down in print bits of oral tradition such as nursery rhymes and fairy tales for hundreds of years, the earliest print appearance of "Ring Around the Rosie" did not occur until the publication of Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes in 1881. For the "plague" explanation of "Ring Around the Rosie" to be true, we have to believe that children were reciting this nursery rhyme continuously for over five centuries, yet not one person in that five hundred year span found it popular enough to merit writing it down. (How anyone could credibly assert that a rhyme which didn't appear in print until 1881 actually "began about 1347" is a mystery. If the rhyme were really this old, then "Ring Around the Rosie" antedates even Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and therefore we would have examples of this rhyme in Middle English as well as Modern English forms.)

www.snopes.com...

Um actually...the part about Jack breaking his crown...the crown is a part of ur head. So, he broke his head.

In the ring a ring a rosie song, it isn't "a tissue, a tissue" nor is it "ashes, ashes".. it is actually the sound a-tish-u, the sound you make when you sneeze.
They did not have tissues in the 14th century, nor did they burn the dead. They buried the dead in large pits and covered them with lime outside of the city walls.

Snopes is something I have bookmarked for anytime I go through ATS threads . . .

I grew up hearing that Wee Willie Winkie was about more than the town crier. I remember my grandmother telling me that it was about the british civil war. That is was about the roundheads ordering people to pray in public to discover, by the way they prayed, if they were catholic sympathizers.
She had a second verse for that rhyme, which I cannot find by googling. I ended with the phrase

"there he met an old man who would not say his prayers
So I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs."

******
The story I heard about "London Bridge" is that it commemorated a viking attack, when the viking fleet tied ropes to the original (wooden) bridge and pulled it down; they did this to keep troops from crossing the Thames and defending both halves of the city. I heard that "my fair lady" was a princess that was ransomed.
Probably bunk as well, just like all the others.