When we tuck our children into bed at night and tell them fairy tales and nursery rhymes, we intend them to nod off peacefully and have pleasant dreams. But how pleasant can their dreams be when their sleepy petite heads are filled not with visions of sugar plums but with fear, violence and death?
Their petite heads are destined to be filled with the same images as ours were: blind mice who run but can't flee having their tails amputated with a carving knife; a boy who kisses girls and makes them cry; an old woman living in a shoe who whips her hungry children for no reason; babies rocking in cradles and falling down when branches break; Solomon Grundy, born on Monday is dead by the end of the week; Tom, the Piper's son, steals pigs; scary spiders frighten petite girls on tuffets; Humpty Dumpty falls off a wall and can never be fixed; and monkeys who catch weasels and pop them. How did this carnage begin?
Baby Lyrics
Some of these tales have been around for a very long time and ordinarily date from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries as one of England's most enduring forms of oral culture. Apparently most nursery rhymes were originally composed for adult entertainment, originating as favorite ballads and songs.
The earliest known published collection of nursery rhymes was Tommy Thumb's (Pretty) Song Book (London, 1744). It included "Little Tom Tucker," "Sing a Song of Sixpence," and "Who Killed Cock Robin?" The most influential was "Mother Goose's Melody: Sonnets for the Cradle," published by John Newberry in 1781. Among its 51 rhymes were "Jack and Jill," "Ding Dong Bell," and "Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top."
Hush-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.
According to Vikki Harris' "The Origin of Nursery Rhymes & mum Goose" (1997), regardless of their malevolent words, the nursery rhymes that were favorite years ago, and still are today, can be settled into three categories. First are the lullabies, the songs and melodies with which most of us are familiar. These were far from soothing but rather are said to have been sung in order to intimidate the child and/or used as an outlet for the emotions of the parent or nurse:
Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a-hunting,
Gone to get a rabbit skin
To wrap the baby bunting in.
-1784
Bye, baby bumpkin
Where's Tony Lumpkin
My lady's on her death-bed,
With eating half a pumpkin.
-1842
A second calculate for the development of nursery rhymes was as child amusement. Counting rhymes, and alphabet rhymes fit into this category, and are ordinarily non-violent.
One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let him go again.
-1888
Here's A, B, C, D, E, F, and G,
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V,
W, X, Y, and Z-
And O, dear me,
When shall I learn
My A, B, C?
1869
Tickle games were effortlessly used for the amusement of infants and toddlers. Maybe the two best known are:
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Pat it and prick it, and mark it with B,
And put it in the oven for baby and me
-1698
This petite piggy went to market,
This petite piggy stayed home,
This petite piggy had roast beef,
This petite piggy had none,
And this petite piggy cried,
Wee, wee, wee
All the way home.
-1728
"It is also inherent that the reputation of preservation should go to the nursery itself," explains Henry Bett in "Nursery Rhymes and Tales - Their Origin and History (1968) "We owe the preservation of our nursery rhymes and nursery tales from remote ages to the marvelous persistence of favorite tradition, reinforced by the characteristic conservatism of childhood which insists on having rhymes repeated the same way each time."
In the circle game Ring-around-the-rosie, links have been made to the Great Plague of London and Edinburgh. The lines "Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down" or "Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush! We've all tumbled down" is referring to the death of the people.
Ring-a-round a rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.
*******
Three blind mice
Three blind mice,
See how they run!
They all ran after a farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?
*************
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey concept 'twas all in fun.
Pop! goes the weasel.
*****************
Georgie Porgie, puddin' and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
(This rhyme refers to the amorous and amoral Prince Regent who became George Iv during Regency times in England)
********
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.
******
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
If you thought about reread Hansel and Gretel, you may never again repeat it to your children:
Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife
and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the
girl Gretel. He had petite to bite and to break, and once when
great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer collect even daily bread. Now when he concept over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife, what is to come to be of us. How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anyone even for ourselves. I'll tell you what, husband, answered the woman, early to-morrow morning we
will take the children out into the forest to where it is the
thickest.
There we will light a fire for them, and give each of
them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and
leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we
shall be rid of them. No, wife, said the man, I will not do that.
How can I bear to leave my children alone in the forest. The wild animals would soon come and tear them to pieces. O' you fool, said she, then we must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our coffins, and she left him no peace until he consented. But I feel very sorry for the poor children, all the same, said the man.
The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and
had heard what their step-mother had said to their father. Gretel
wept bitter tears, and said to Hansel, now all is over with us.
*********
In "The Truth Behind Goldilocks," reasoning Floss - Volume 2, Richard Zachs writes that we are reading watered-down versions of the fairy tales and that the originals were far more visible and brutal.
In the earliest known version (1831) of Goldilocks, discovered in Toronto, the author, one Eleanor Mure, a 32-year-old maiden aunt, created "The Story of The Three Bears" for her nephew, Horace Broke.
The primary "Goldilocks" was an "angry old woman" who breaks into the bears' house because they snubbed her during a recent group call. Once the three bears catch the old woman, they try to frame out what to do with her. Here's what they came up with:
On the fire they throw her, but burn her they couldn't;
In the water they put her, but drown there she wouldn't;
They seize her before all the wondering People,
And chuck her aloft on St. Paul's churchyard steeple;
And if she's still there, when you earnestly look,
You will see her quite naturally -- my dear petite Horbook!
No other version has Goldilocks impaled on a church steeple. The grayhaired old lady didn't come to be a goldenhaired young girl until 1918.
The tales which we so fondly recall from our childhood will be passed on to our children and furnish yet someone else generation of nursery lore.
Who killed Cock Robin? I did Mommy. It was fun.
Nursery Rhymes: Are They Safe
