Rhymes

They lull children to sleep. They’re catchy. They are our first experience of oral history, transferred from one generation to the next and have been around even before any written form of prose is obtainable.

I’m referring to nursery rhymes. I have a five-month old nephew, so I can’t escape these ubiquitous doggerels whenever I visit. As the last-song syndrome goes, I hum and tap to the beat of “Jack & Jill “, “Hey Diddle, Diddle”, etc when I leave, and they haunt me whole afternoon to my unending exasperation. It’s not cool to hum nursery rhymes at work. Not cool.

One day last week I began to think for some convoluted quirk of reason the reality of these lyrics, are they as harmless as most mothers think? Good thing for mothers with internet connection, they can just Google the answers, but how about those who haven’t any? Yes, some parts of my country are not connected yet to the World Wide Web.
For those lucky mothers they might stumble across these explanations regarding the history and origin of some of the most popular nursery rhymes:

It is a commonly accepted fact that there is a relationship between nursery rhymes and British History. Although the English language have changed drastically, its influence to eastern cultures have a marked difference in discipline and entertaining young children in these parts of the world. At a very young age, we are introduced to the idea of kings and queens and the other members of the royal court. As well as, the London Bridge, the Bells of Saint Clemens, Charring Cross and many others without even realizing they are not located elsewhere in the eastern hemisphere. And here’s the catch, some of them have origins that are political in nature and others even have more sinister lines and meaning.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, ... “ was about the complaints of the poor against enclosures of land for sheep farming among others.

“Georgie, Georgie, pudding and pie, ... “ legend says this refers to King George IV because of his greed, flirtations and fear of reforms among others.

“Hey diddle diddle, ... “ (my nephew’s favorite) ..this one generated a lot of theories , feel free to Google them.

“Hickory, dickory, dock. ... “ this is said to refer to Richard Cromwell, who could not preserve the Republic created by his father or prevent the restoration of the monarchy.

“Ring a ring of Roses” … is a tale giving an account of the Bubonic Plague where about 25 million people died across Europe.

“Pop Goes the Weasel”… spoke of the extreme poverty during Victorian London, “pop” was the word used for pawning goods and “weasel” was the slang for flute, whistle.

And many others that discussing them here will take pages and pages and hundreds of links. Reading about them was an experience and a blast.

And from hereon, for every line and rhyme I utter, I’m reminded, that Humpty Dumpty really was not an egg.



For further reading please browse:

1. http://www.rhymes.org.uk/
2. http://nurseryrhymes.allinfoabout.com/
3. http://folktalesmyths.suite101.com/
4. http://www.mysticfamiliar.com/
5. http://www.simpletoremember.com/