I don’t know about you but I find the dark origins of nursery rhymes fascinating. My nana used to bounce us on her knee and sing Mary Mary Quite Contrary to us and it sounds perfectly innocent doesn’t it? I mean when you do a search for it you will find nothing but cute little images like this one.
Mary Mary Quite Contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle shells and silver bells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
But according to the BBC, there is a grisly history to this rhyme:
“Mary, Mary Quite Contrary may be about Bloody Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and concerns the torture and murder of Protestants. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and her “garden” here is an allusion to the graveyards which were filling with Protestant martyrs. The “silver bells” were thumbscrews; while “cockleshells” are believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to male genitals.”
The next nursery rhyme I used to love as a child is Ring a Ring of Roses
Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.
This little rhyme has another grisly meaning. Again according to the BBC:
“Ring a Ring o Roses, or Ring Around the Rosie, may be about the 1665 Great Plague of London: the “rosie” being the malodorous rash that developed on the skin of bubonic plague sufferers, the stench of which then needed concealing with a “pocket full of posies”. The bubonic plague killed 15% of Britain’s population, hence “atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down (dead).”
Fascinating isn’t it? I really love this. The people who thought these up and and taught parents to sing them to their sweet little cherubs… LOL Brilliant. 😀
Dreaded nurse 