The Stories Behind Six Famous Nursery Rhymes and What They are Really About

The first songs and verses we teach our children are often those our mothers taught us. With a gentle rhythm and easy rhymes they are quickly remembered. These are the so -called “Nursery Rhymes”. But not all of them are what they seem. Rhymes were used to make comments on current affairs, some of which would have been politically sensitive. Nicknames, innuendo and euphenisms were necessary in difficult times when it was preferable to be safe than sorry.

Let us consider one or two and you will see what I mean. We will start with one of the most well known, “Ring a Ring o” Roses.

As a child I imagined a kind of dance round the maypole in a rural paradise. Not so. The ring of roses was a circular red body rash, the posies contained herbs to cover the smells or, it was thought, a defence against infection, “Atishoo” was violent sneezing and “all fall down” was a reference to death. All symptoms of the Great Plague, or Black Death which killed over half London’s population in 1665.

Another nursery rhyme with a grisly origin is “Mary Mary, quite contrary”. You may not want to read this, because ignorance is truly bliss on this one.

Is it about a lady in a crinoline dress walking down a garden path admiring her flowers as depicted in children’s books? Absolutely not. “Mary” is Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, the Bloody Mary of 1553-58 and a staunch Catholic. The garden in question is a graveyard of martyred Protestants, the “silver bells a euphemism for thumbscrews and “cockleshells’ were also tools of torture. The “little maids” derived from “The Maiden” an early English version of the guillotine. I will never sing that one again….

Do you want to hear more about “Jack” aka King Louis XVI who “broke his crown (was beheaded) and Jill – Antoinette who was executed later? The final verse was added later to give the it a happier ending.

When you played the game “Oranges and Lemons’ as a child and skipped under the joined arms of your friends for the final “here comes a chopper to chop off your head”, that was scarey enough if it was your little head being caught. It was as well that the original meaning had been obscured by time because the arms represented the infamous Tyburn Tree where executions were carried out and heads literally chopped off. It was certainly not a game in those days.