Nursery rhymes are meant for children to enjoy, to listen to and to learn. Some even are used in games children play. So it was not surprise that I was shocked to find some disturbing things behind nursery rhymes.
There was a girl named Mary who had a garden. In it the nursery rhyme said she grew “silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row”. No problem with that, right? I does not even really have to make much sense and children still love to recite it.
Well guess what? According to certain sources silver bells and cockleshells were “torture devices” which the Queen Mary I of England used on her victims. She had a nickname and it was Bloody Mary.
Children enjoy playing a game and reciting the rhyme about London Bridge falling down. Everyone smiles while listening to them recite - “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.”
Well this was not just a made-up rhyme. It apparently goes back to a time when the bodies of dead children were found entombed in large structures like bridges. The game consists of holding hands like an arch and then crashing down to capture a child once the song is over.
Who remembers the three men in a tub? They were a butcher, a baker and a candlestick-maker. The truth about his is quite awful. Apparently it was sung about men who spied on …show more content…
Well this one takes us back to slavery days and is not really a nursery rhyme. Apparently this one tells the story about a slave who was shooing flies away from his master. Alas his master fell from his horse and died after the pone he was riding pitched him off because the pone has been bitten by a blue-tail fly. You get the picture? So after the master dies, the slave might be considered guilty, the jury would wonder why and finally the verdict turns out to be that it was the fault of the blue-tail
There was a girl named Mary who had a garden. In it the nursery rhyme said she grew “silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row”. No problem with that, right? I does not even really have to make much sense and children still love to recite it.
Well guess what? According to certain sources silver bells and cockleshells were “torture devices” which the Queen Mary I of England used on her victims. She had a nickname and it was Bloody Mary.
Children enjoy playing a game and reciting the rhyme about London Bridge falling down. Everyone smiles while listening to them recite - “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.”
Well this was not just a made-up rhyme. It apparently goes back to a time when the bodies of dead children were found entombed in large structures like bridges. The game consists of holding hands like an arch and then crashing down to capture a child once the song is over.
Who remembers the three men in a tub? They were a butcher, a baker and a candlestick-maker. The truth about his is quite awful. Apparently it was sung about men who spied on …show more content…
Well this one takes us back to slavery days and is not really a nursery rhyme. Apparently this one tells the story about a slave who was shooing flies away from his master. Alas his master fell from his horse and died after the pone he was riding pitched him off because the pone has been bitten by a blue-tail fly. You get the picture? So after the master dies, the slave might be considered guilty, the jury would wonder why and finally the verdict turns out to be that it was the fault of the blue-tail