Messed Up Nursery Rhymes

[Josephine Bowman S7]

Good Morrow my good people!! Since the hour be late I have been pulling up old Nursery Rhymes told to me as a child and rereading them now...I realize how utterly messed up some of them truly are. For example:

*clears throat*

Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben, He ate more meat than fourscore men; He ate a cow, he ate a calf, He ate a butcher and a half; He ate a church, he ate a steeple, He ate the priest and all the people!

A cow and a calf, An ox and a half, A church and a steeple, And all the good people, And yet he complain'd that his stomach wasn't full.

[Josephine Bowman S7]

Sing a song of sixpence,
a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
And was not that a dainty dish to set before the king?

The king was in the parlour, counting out his money;
The queen was in the pantry, eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes;
There came a little blackbird, and pecked off her nose.

[Ivy Tunstall]

I don't think we should indulge you any further.

Go to bed.

[Josephine Bowman S7]

LMAO...come on Izy...didn't you hear any of these as a kid?

[Ivy Tunstall]

Only the four and twenty blackbirds.

"Oranges and lemons," say the bells of St. Clement's,
"You owe me five farthings," say the bells of St. Martin's.
"When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey.
"When I grow rich," say the bells of Shoreditch.
"When will that be?" say the bells of Stepney.
"I do not know," say the great bells of Bow.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chip chop chip chop - the last man's dead."

(That one always spooked me a bit as a child).

[Josephine Bowman S7]

Dude that one is awesome! *ignored the sick twisted mind at this late hour* I never heard that one as a kid.

Three blind mice,
Three blind mice
See how they run,
See how they run!

They all ran after
The farmer's wife
She cut off their tails
With a carving knife
Did you ever see
Such a sight in your life
As three blind mice?

[Cyrus Thorn]

Well I don't know how many of you know, but I'm dutch. (:
I grew up with mostly dutch nursery rhymes and don't really know many english ones.

This is the best nursery rhyme, although admittedly more of a song that we sung as we got older. I still sing it almost daily because it's oddly comforting.

Ik stond voor een poppenhuis,
Ik zag mooie poppen staan
Ik zei wat zijn deze poppen hier
"De poppen drinken pop wijn
de poppen poppen drinken bier "
deze poppen gaan krijgen
echt dronken met alle pop bier
en pop wijn "

It's missing a few lines. :3
I guess we lost them over the years aha.
But basically -

I stood before a doll's house (infront of a shop window)
I saw some lovely dolls standing there,
I said 'what are these dolls doing here?'
- "The dolls are drinking doll wine,
the dolls are drinking doll beer!"
'Oh, the dolls are going to get very drunk,
drinking all that doll wine,
and doll beer.'

Pretty much like that. xD
It's ehh really odd.

But as for the english ones, I don't really know them.

[Ariane Chan]

*cringes* I've always hated nursery rhymes. I find it amusing, though, that most of them have rude hidden meanings. xD;; If you're interested or curious, try Googling!


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!

[Josephine Bowman S7]

Astrid...I want to learn that Nursery Rhyme/Song whatever...it is absolutely amazing!!

Viv, I definitely not what you mean with the hidden meanings, for instance:

Ring around the rosey
Pockets full of posey
Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!


And no...to answer some questions I never did go to sleep. *giggles*

[Ivy Tunstall]

I always sang 'a-tishu' rather than 'Ashes' in that one... as though sneezing. I thought that one was about bubonic plague, though?

[Woodrow Winchester R4]

Okay this one I always thought was a little messed up,

Peter, Peter
Pumpkin Eater
Had A Wife And
Could Not Keep Her

He Put Her In
A Pumpkin Shell
And There He
Kept Her Very Well!?

[Woodrow Winchester R4]

Something I learned about last year, when I was doing a research paper on folk songs. It's a french canadian folk song, that quite frankly just freaks me out.

Alouette,
Gentille alouette.
Alouette,
Je te plumerai.
Je te plumerai la tête (Je t'eplumerais la tête)
Est la tête(est la tête)
Alouette!
OOoooooooooo

Now in english so sing along....

Little birdy
Pretty little birdy.
Littly birdy,
I'm going to rip your feathers off.
I'm going to rip them off your head. (I'm going to rip them off your head)
Off your head (off your head)
Little birdy!
OOoooooooooo

[Josephine Bowman S7]

*shrugs* I always learned it as Ashes, Ashes...and yes it is about the bubonic plague. Didn't they burn the bodies? That was the excuse I was given as a child as to why it was Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.


And thank you Justin for ruining that chilld song for me...here I was all singing along up until your pretty little translation...

[Woodrow Winchester R4]

Ah, the true meaning of things are usually best left unsaid, but in this case, who teaches their kids these songs? I learned nursery rhymes from my friends and books, my parents believed in the ever more popular, let him listen to the radio method. As for ring around the posies, I always learned it as 'ashes, ashes' as well. Oh, and yeah that was what they did to the bodies of the ones who died from the bubonic plague, it was so that it could be contained and wouldn't spread, though it was originally spread through rats, pesky rodents.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Well, fleas, to be more precise. The fleas were the vector for the virus and the rats the vector for the fleas (and the trade ships the vector for the rats). *nod nod*

[Stephen Donahue S7]

LMAO...Justin, my grandparents and parents sang me a lot of these songs and said a lot of these rhymes when I was a kid. And...if I ever do have kids, I have every intention of carrying them on. After all, if we do not carry them on then, like rhymes and songs before them, they will eventually die out. And what a sad day that will be for the English language and those that are destined to carry forth it's entirety.

I took a Folksong class and felt blessed to have heard some of these folk songs outside of the books we read in the class...so my passion for the spoken word is a little more intense than it used to be, especially when it comes to rhymes, songs, and folk-music.

[Woodrow Winchester R4]

Good point Ivy, although I wonder how the virus was made, damn fleas. I agree with you Stephen, I too value those songs passed down through the ages of civilization. Although there are some that are like, woah, who let this happen?

Rock-a-bye
Rock-a-bye Baby, in 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.

Georgie Porgie
Georgie Porgie pudding and pie
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play
Georgie Porgie ran away


The first one is just easy to figure out, but Georgie Porgie, well that one was a little disconcerting. It was about a torrid gay sex scandal involving King James I, Georgie Porgie is thought to be a caricature of George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham.

Edit: Thanks Izy for clearing up my misconception. ;D

[Ivy Tunstall]

Well if we knew where viruses had come from there would be less jobs available in science, tehee.

I find Rock-a-bye extremely disturbing.

James I, actually - Charles I's father. I believe that Viv will be able to tell you all about it because she's learnt all about it in history? (My sister certainly did). Charles I is the one whose head got chopped off - the only one, I think. Regicide is a thing better left to the French.

[Ariane Chan]

*perks up* ;P

Yup, I can tell ye about James and Charles, poor guys that they were. But how is that related to this? xD;;

I do believe poor Charles was the only one. That is what we're currently studying in History with one of my two teachers. :)

My favourite learned fact will always be that James I was totally gay. I still find that hard to understand. Of course gay people existed, but the fact is his court - everyone - knew. This was a very religious country/time we're talking about. What the heck? xD

[Stephen Donahue S7]

I was always under the impression that Rock-a-bye Baby was a song that talked about King James II I think.... *scratches brow and thinks hard* Something like that...about the fall of some house in England...Meh I can't remember...my mother told me about that a long time ago and heck if I remember the nonsense she was spouting.