Read Followups

Post A Followup

Mother Goose Message Board Home Page

Mother Goose Society Home Page

Re: origins of nursery rhymes

Posted by none on March 25, 2003 at 20:28:17:

In Reply to: Re: origins of nursery rhymes posted by teresa on February 03, 2003 at 03:36:21:

Jack be nimble,

Jack be quick,

Jack jump over,

The candlestick,

This one doesn�t have any intrigue or politics in it, just part of a celebration. A wedding celebration, in fact. During the festivities, a candle was set up, and people took turns trying to jump over the candle. If you extinguished the flame, you were due for a year of bad luck, but if the candle remained lit, a year of good luck was to follow. Of course, another part of wedding celebrations was drinking alcohol, so the people who got really drunk would likely be the people stuck with the bad luck.

As you can see, almost every nursery rhyme has a story behind it. Humpty Dumpty was actually King Richard III, and the famous farmer�s wife from the Three Blind Mice was supposedly Queen Mary I. Baa Baa Black Sheep was about taxation, and The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe was referring to the British Empire trying to control its colonies.

Yet children year after year recite these stories, not knowing the original joke or gossip hidden within, not really caring is Jack Sprat was King Charles I. The fake stories that we invent for the rhyme now are much more fun, anyway.

Ring around the rosies,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
This one is very sick, and perhaps the most well known story behind the rhyme. This was about one of the black plagues, where symptoms included circles around the eyes (ring around the rosies), and coughing up dried blood from the lungs, resembling ashes. The pocket full of posies was a medieval belief that posies held some curative measures against the plague, so carrying around that flower would keep you safe. Finally, the last line spells out the unavoidable ending to the story, of everyone falling down, dead.

Followups:

• Re: origins of nursery rhymes gang rape edwin 02:50:17 06/02/04 (0)
• Re: origins of nursery rhymes mcclendon 15:19:09 10/31/03 (0)

Post a followup here: