High Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle.....Fairy tales, nursey rhymes

[chuck]

I have always been interested in the historical origins of the Oral Folklore tales and rhymes....There must be thousands of these stories and rhymes....I know that all counties and cultures have contributed to these wonderful Folk tales....I'm more familiar with the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson works and I prefer the older and darker tales.....Me thinks these oral/written traditional tales were not told/written for children..We can thank Mother Goose and Disney for sugaring/editing these stories for today's Children.....Many of the stories must have been about the times or a important experience or incident....Curious what others think...."Ring around the Rosy"

[Margaret]

A lot of the Mother Goose rhymes were originally political lampoons.

[Madeleine]

Ring of Roses was about the plague if I remember rightly.

I think a lot of them have now been Disneyfied beyond recognition, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Seven Dwarves of Snow White fame were based on children who worked in the mines in the past.

[M.M. Bennetts]

Ring a Ring a Rosy is about Bubonic plague.

Much of Mother Goose is political lampoon, written or collected by one Elizabeth Vergoose who lived and was buried in Boston, Massachusetts.

The frequent theme of wicked stepmothers occurs everywhere from Scotland--Ashpittle and the Twa Brothers--across the whole of Europe, and reflects the reality of life before the 20th century: mortality rate among women was somewhere around 40% during childbirth and men often and generally remarried to provide a mother for their children. And this is true of the poor as well as the wealthy--J.S. Bach remarried for such a reason, for example--though in his case, happily for himself, his new wife and all his 20 children.

[Ash]

Ring a Ring a Rosy is about Bubonic plague.

That was recently debunked. http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

This is a subject I've always been intrigued with and did a paper on it in college. There are a few story themes that repeat again and again in every culture thats rather fascinating when you take a look at them. The Grimm Brothers took many of them to creat their tales - which btw are much much darker than the sanitized disney variations. Since such stories were the only entertainment around, children were not exempt from them - they were often in the audience with their parents. And since so much of their world was violent, the violence in these probably didn't faze them, much. The Japanese illustrator Deni has some wonderful books of Japanese folk tales. I remember a book on Native American tales, there are several famous ones, but can't think of that title.


A few interesting fiction twists on fairytales include:

Kissing the Witch by Emma Donogue

Book of Lost Things by John Connely (warning, not for everyone, rather graphic)

Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and Mirror Mirror all by Gregory Maguire

The Real Story of the Three Little Pigs as told by A. Wolf and The Horrid Little Pigs are hilarious send ups to the original children's story.

[sweetpotatoboy]

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts is a recent, decent book on the story behind nursery rhymes.

[Vanessa]

There's a lot of controversy about Humpty Dumpty. There are several different theories, one of which is to do with the English Civil War and another with Richard III. Funnily enough, it was the logo on my daughter's primary school jumper - Cardinal Wolsey being the inspiration as he lived in the village for a while (and also arrested at the castle) and there are road names with his name. They also have a Humpty Dumpty competition (as well as a scarecrow one which can frighten one to death when driving past)!:rolleyes:

Little Jack Horner is to do with land, taxes and deeds. And funnily enough again, my aunt had a copy of our family tree on her wall (I know it's supposed to be kept rolled up but she'd had it framed!) and at the top it said 'House of Horner'.

The Cat and the fiddle - rivalry between two farming families from Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire - the Heys and the Moons. The Moons looked after the Abbey alms dishes and the Heys the annointing spoons. When the monastries were destroyed they chose opposite sides - the Heys choosing to go Protestant and thus 'jumping over' the Moons and taking most of their property. The Priory had two stone carved dogs and a son from one family eloped with a daughter of the other family (the dish ran away with the spoon).

The Crooked Man - General Sir Alexander Leslie of Scotland. The 'crooked sixpence' - Charles I. The 'crooked stile' - the border between England and Scotland. The 'crooked house' - Parliament.

Old King Cole - in AD 219 Coel, Duke of Britain began to build the city of Kaircoel (now Colchester). He had a daughter, Helen, who was a talented musician. King Cole died in 297 AD, hence the word 'old'.

As for Six a Song of Sixpence - one theory is that the 24 blackbirds are the hours of the day, the king was Henry VIII, the queen Katherine and the maid Anne Boleyn: the maid sinned and the blackbird snapping off her nose is the devil.

[Leo62]

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts is a recent, decent book on the story behind nursery rhymes.

I second that recommendation. The author is a friend of mine, and knows his stuff. He also debunks the "Ring around the Roses"/Plague theory.

[chuck]

Thanks all....Your over all knowledge never ceases to amaze me....

[M.M. Bennetts]

I stand corrected. But you'll still find about a million Brits believe that it's about plague.

Do check out Elizabeth Vergoose, though. She's an under-researched character.

[annis]

And for a bit of fun you can't go past Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolting_Rhymes)

[MLE]

I was always told Humpty Dumpty was about King John and the Magna Carta.

Heavy Words had a different take of one than I had been taught -- Goosey, Goosey Gander, according to my source, was about Oliver Cromwell's insistence on enforcing religious strictures on every one, even "in my lady's chamber."

[annis]

Somewhere I have a copy of Alan Trussell-Cullen's book A Pocketful of Posies: A History of Nursery Rhymes - will have to look it out. It is a bit old now, though, and it's quite possible that interpretations have altered as more historical information has come to light.

Slightly off-topic, but do mothers still sing nursery rhymes to their kids? I have the impression that it's a dying tradition.

[SGM]

I was always told Humpty Dumpty was about King John and the Magna Carta.

Heavy Words had a different take of one than I had been taught -- Goosey, Goosey Gander, according to my source, was about Oliver Cromwell's insistence on enforcing religious strictures on every one, even "in my lady's chamber."

I had a discussion about this one recently and found an explanation about "the old man who wouldn't say his prayers" that implied that the Parliamentarians tested a person's allegiance by how they said the Lord's prayer, ie in Latin or not. I would have thought anyone with an ounce of commonsense even in the 17th century would have managed to recite it in English to allay suspicion even if it was not their norm. My Lady's chamber it said was a reference to priests' holes. Hmmm -- I am not entirely sure about some of these interpretations.

[Ash]

I stand corrected. But you'll still find about a million Brits believe that it's about plague.

Do check out Elizabeth Vergoose, though. She's an under-researched character.

Hee, I wouldn't doubt it. Probably the same number of Americans who think the Mother Goose buried in a Boston cemetary is the real thing. Speaking of, This article has some interesting info Not sure what really is true, there are so many different theories. Have you done any research on her?

http://www.answers.com/topic/mother-goose

[Ash]

Slightly off-topic, but do mothers still sing nursery rhymes to their kids? I have the impression that it's a dying tradition.

I can't speak for moms but I know we always sing them with the kids at preschool. In my class, they are often perfect for teaching some language concepts, plus there rhythm is easy for some of my hearing impaired kids to pick up and imitate.

Here's the Wiki article on Mother Goose which is better than the one I just linked

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Goose

[EC2]

I have a book 'The Restoration of Cock Robin' by Norman Iles. 'Nursery rhymes and carols restored to their original meanings.' Some of it is a bit far-fetched and fanciful, but it also contains a good deal of interesting information and illustrates how the wording has changed and become sanitised down the years.
Also Malcolm Jones' Secret Middle Ages has lots of folklore explanations that reveal that these rhymes are not as innocent as they seem!

[wendy]

There is quite a lot of academic research concerning fairy tales.
One of the most interesting books is Women Who Run With the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes) which argues that the women often used fairy stories to warn young girls about dangerous sexual situations at a time when they could not overtly speak out for fear of patriarchal retribution.
Another good read is Grimm's Grimmest, which has an excellent introduction by Maria Tatar summarizing the current themes.
Maria Tatar is one of the leading experts in the field -- she has two books I would recommend: Off With Their Heads: Fairytales and the Culture of Childhood and The Hard Facts of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

[marshalslion]

Pop Goes The Weasel,The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes by Albert Jack.
ISBN :9781846 1414447.

[TeralynPilgrim]

If you want to hear a story Disney really screwed up, you should look into The Little Mermaid. The true version is beautiful, though it's so sad it makes me feel a little dead inside.

Someone ought to write a novel to retell that story. I would do it, but I don't have the stomach for it.

[EC2]

Pop Goes The Weasel,The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes by Albert Jack.
ISBN :9781846 1414447.

I once bought someone a card with a picture of a bunch of animals in a grocery shop along with the caption 'Weasel began to get very worried when he heard Mrs Badger buying half a pound of tuppeny rice and half a pound of treacle.'

[Alisha Marie Klapheke]

If you want to hear a story Disney really screwed up, you should look into The Little Mermaid. The true version is beautiful, though it's so sad it makes me feel a little dead inside.

Someone ought to write a novel to retell that story. I would do it, but I don't have the stomach for it.

Maybe someone answered this already, but I just finished reading MERMAID by Carolyn Turgeon(sp?) and she wrote a novel based on the original. It contained great imagery and some fantastic daydreaming material.

[Ash]

Not sure its necessary to write a book; Hans Christian Andersen's version is just fine for me. Tho I do agree with you about Disney's total twist on stories. I refused to watch Anastasia, knowing the history as I do. And the Hunchback....I had to laugh, soon after that movie came out I was in the bookstore and heard a little girl ooo and awww over the books on the movie. I soo wanted to say that she should read the real one, written by Victor Hugo. But I just smiled and walked away.