This week the girls take aim at Nursery Rhymes...
Ever listened to a Nursery Rhyme and thought "I wonder how they came up with this?". We all have right? Some Nursery Rhymes sound innocent and charming, especially when being sung by a child however not all Nursery Rhymes are what they appear to be.
But first, what were we drinking?
Bianca was drinking The Pond Merlot
Available from Aldi
Sarah was drinking Sit Stay Society - Ruby's Rosè
Available from Dan Murphy's
Amy was drinking R Paulazzo small-batch Pinot Grigio
Bianca opened with the origins of Nursery Rhymes; plague, medieval taxes, religious persecution, prostitution, babies falling from trees, heads being chopped off in central London, animals being cooked alive, since when were these topics deemed appropriate to peddle to toddlers?
Since the 14th Century, actually. That’s where the earliest nursery rhymes seem to date from, although the ‘golden age’ came later, in the 18th Century.
The roots probably go back even further. There is no human culture that has not invented some form of rhyming ditties for its children.
Baa Baa Black Sheep commonly misinterpreted as being about slavery and picking cotton is actually about the medieval wool tax, imposed in the 13th Century by King Edward I. Under the new rules, a third of the cost of a sack of wool went to him, another went to the church, and the last to the farmer. (In the original version, nothing was therefore left for the little shepherd boy who lives down the lane). Black sheep were also considered bad luck because their fleeces, unable to be dyed, were less lucrative for the farmer.
Rock-a-bye Baby refers to events preceding the Glorious Revolution. The baby in question is supposed to be the son of King James II of England but was widely believed to be another man’s child, smuggled into the birthing room to ensure a Roman Catholic heir. The rhyme is laced with connotation: the “wind” may be the Protestant forces blowing in from the Netherlands; the doomed “cradle” the royal House of Stuart. The earliest recorded version of the words in print contained the ominous footnote: “This may serve as a warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last”.
Ladybird, Ladybird is also about 16th Century Catholics in Protestant England and the priests who were burned at the stake for their beliefs.
Pop Goes The Weasel is an apparently nonsensical rhyme that, upon subsequent inspection, reveals itself to in fact be about poverty, pawnbroking, the minimum wage – and hitting the Eagle Tavern on London’s City Road.
the rhyme "Goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander? Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber" is an allusion to prostitutes - commonly known as geese in the 18th century - and the spread of venereal disease, which was known as "goosebumps" because of the swellings it caused.
Amy decided to take aim at Ring a Ring a Rosy, mainly because she thought that the origin of this nursery rhyme was well established. It turns out we were all quite wrong in our belief that this nursery rhyme was about the bubonic plague which ravaged Europe in the 14th century.
Amy also discovered in her deep dive into this rhyme that there are many variations of the words sung which tend to depend on where you are from. All of the girls were shocked to discover that the second verse doesn't have a documented origin (which Amy could find). If anyone knows the origins of the second verse please let us know!
Sarah finishes the episode off with Nursery Rhymes that you think are about a conversation on gardening but may actually be about something a lot darker. She then goes on to talk about blind mice that may not have been blind or mice, an egg that was actually a cannon, and why the London bridge fell down.
HELP KEEP US HYDRATED
AKA Karma Points
