Nursery rhymes and fairy tales

JW. Thanks for your reply, but no, not mine, the saying is over two hundred years old. Do you remember what we kids did to the rhyme Three Blind Mice? How about Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down (dead from the plague). Post copied from topic Coventry placenames, words and phrases on 6th May 2018 3:23 pm

Taken in their true context, a lot of the old traditional nursery rhymes are sadistic. Would they be banned today I wonder?

Wasn't Oranges and Lemons something about chopping off your head?

Too true Anne. Little Johnny Flynn wasn't very kind to the pussy in the well either (Ding Dong Bell)

I know they are children`s nursery rhymes, but I`ll bet it wasn`t children that made them up. I expect we`ll never know the source other than "anon", but they really are a good source of wide social comment. After all it must have taken some prehistoric Kipling to criticise the tactics of: "The Noble Duke of York He had ten thousand men He marched them up to the top of the hill Then he marched them down again" chorus "When they are up, They`re rup, rup, rup, When they`re down, They`re down, down, down, And when they are only half way up, They are neither up nor down" An original version of "stating the bleedin` obvious" ? Anyway some of his troops must have held a grudge or was it borne of parliamentary criticism?

Roger Turner. Yes we kind of sang them, but the silliest of all and most used were the one sentence ones like: "We're here because we're here because we're here", used by troops when marching. "Green grass is green grass because green grass is green". What rubbish we used as kids.

Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements I owe you five farthings say the bells of St Martins 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, says the great bell of Bow Then the two children or teachers making the arch under which the dancers pass, recite: Chip chop... The last man's head, and the arms are dropped to secure a child who is temporarily trapped for "Off with his head" (perhaps suggestions of Tudor England). This was followed at Stoke National School by a boy and a girl selected from the first part of the game, who had to hold crossed hands, then swing round and round. The others then sang: "Now you're married you must be gay (means happy in the old sense) You must be true to all you say, you must be kind, you must be good And help your wife to chop the wood". These children's games and songs must by now have passed into history. One cannot imagine any of today's children finding any enjoyment in them, but at the time they seemed fun. Edited by member, 6th May 2018 5:42 pm

"Why are we waiting" repeated endlessly is pretty silly, but if sung by a good natured crowd it could be quite harmonius and fun We used to sing at my MN training school in North Wales "Lloyd George knows my father Father knows Lloyd George" again repeated endlessly, but it had a twist as we used to substitute the name of our Divisional Officer for that of Lloyd George

We thought they were nice little rhymes when we sung them as kids, never paying much attention to the words. Most of them were either designed to be satirical (like the cartoons of the period) or to tell a moral story. I believe that a library or education authority in London wrote PC versions of most of them , now hopefully long forgotten. Similarly, if you ever read original versions of fairy tales you wouldn’t be reading them to your kids. They were either bloodthirsty (Cinderella) or very depressing (The Little Match Girl).

Old Lincolnian, Wicked witches, ogres, evil Queens and petrified forests didn't help, although seeing them on the movies these days, it looks as if the kids like that sort of thing. We can't do right for doing wrong.

Kaga, I seem to remember that the `atishoo atishoo` rhyme went something like Ring a ring of roses, a pocket full of posies, atishoo atishoo all fall down. I`m sure I read that this referred (as you said) to the black death but the posies were carried in the pocket as a supposed protection against the plague and the ring of roses was what was put on the front of cottages where the occupants were infected.

Yes Greg you're correct, we even did a dance to it, and fell down, but there were so many old sayings and rhymes. Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of an Englishman. A frog he would a wooing go, kim-anary-kiro' All the birds of the air went a sighing and sobbing when they heard of the death of old Cock Robin. And was it Lady Godiva or Queen Elizabeth that rode a cock horse to Banbury cross? Do you remember the toys wooden sticks with a horse's head. My father bought a goat, I'll say he did He bought a goat, just for his kid One day the goat was feeling fine, he ate the shirts from off the line Father bashed his back tied him to the railway track A big express came roaring by And that poor goat was sure to die When all of a sudden he coughed with pain Coughed up those shirts and flagged the train. It gets worse, time to stop .

Kaga! Nobody really knows - many names banded about over the years. I photographed this in 2016: This large bronze statue depicting the 'Fine Lady upon a White Horse' was unveiled in April 2005, and refers to the English nursery rhyme 'Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross'

Many years ago now there was a radio programme (one off) "Ride a cock horse to Coventry Cross" which was about the Godiva story, but the title taken from the nursery rhyme of Banbury Cross. It could have been in the sixties or seventies.

It sounded as if two coconut halves were used for the clip clop of Godiva's horse!