I know I've discussed this before.

[conuly]

But I can't begin to remember what I said or what answers I got, so we can discuss it again, okay? OKAY????

I was reading the most recent two in a series of kid's books lately (the Gregor the Overlander series... not half-bad. A bit heavy-handed in parts, but at those parts I remind myself that I'm well past the age range for these books. Is it just me, or is there a serious surplus of fantasy in the kid's section nowadays? Not as many long-ranging series like I had growing up, but a heck of a lot of fantasy.... But I digress) and they mentioned this nursery rhyme:

Bat, bat, come under my hat
And you shall have some bacon
And when I bake, you shall have cake
If I am not mistaken

It's apparently a real nursery rhyme, just one of the less-popular ones.

Which got me thinking on two or three lines at once.

1. Which nursery rhymes have tunes, and how can I find these tunes?
2. What makes a nursery rhyme? Classic nusery rhymes seem to include songs, moralistic poems, proverbs, educational rhymes, political slogans, and riddles (humpty dumpty is supposed to be a riddle). What makes these nursery rhymes instead of simply "children's songs" or such?
3. Can we add to the canon of nursery rhymes? Say, if we define a nursery rhyme as being a popular rhyme most children know which is less than so-and-so long, could we add other songs to that list if they were short? Like, say "A peanut sat on a railroad track"? Or is it only those rhymes which are already acknowledged as being nursery rhymes?
4. Do you know any less-known nursery rhymes you'd like to share? What's your favorite? Least favorite? (I'm always eager to memorize new things, y'know)
5. How do nursery rhymes run in other languages?

Answer, please.

Comments

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Jingle bells! Batman smells!
Robin laid an egg!
Batmobile broke its wheel
And Joker got away!

This one's been in circulation for decades. :)

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

I've got an unusual answer for number 5.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_global_schoolyard_rhymes.php

[mayna.livejournal.com]

Aren't nursery rhymes ones from centuries ago? So anything you'd make up today wouldn't be a nursery rhyme. But I don't think they traditionally had tunes with them, so like Row Row Row your boat would be a son gand not a nursery rhyme.

Maylie knows like all of them by heart. And most of our Laurie Berkner CD. It's funny to listen to her singing Oh Susanna.

I think Little Jack Horner is my favorite. Mostly because when she was littler, I taught her hand motions with it, and it was just so cute to see her go "wittle jack honer, sat in coner, eating kissmas pie. he put in his fum.....!!! pull out pum!!!!! and said what good boy I!" (or something like that, it's been awhile since she talked like that)

[conuly]

1. That's what I'm asking! Asking me again isn't fair.

Seriously, though - is it a closed canon? I mean, probably "A peanut sat on a railroad track" wouldn't become a nursery rhyme *now*, just a popular short song. But what about in 100 years? 200? 300? Can it, in the future, become a nursery rhyme? How old does it have to be?

Is Mother Goose the only allowed source of nursery rhymes?

2. Listening to young children sing is always funny, and adorable in that heart-tearing way. I'm not sure if Ana's rendition of "Baa baa black/white/brown/green/yellow/whatever sheep" is cutest, or "Sumer is acumin in" (SING CU, CONNIE, SING CU!). Yes, I just posted this so I could boast that my niece rather gratiutiously knows a song in Middle English (is it Middle English? I can't keep them all straight).

3. Son gand? I thought it was just a round. *is all confuzzled*

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

3's a typo-- song and

[conuly]

D'oh!

And I really thought it was an obscure musical term.

*blushes and hides*

[mayna.livejournal.com]

I don't know how long it would take for something to become a nursery rhyme. But I think all the ones we have are like REALLY old, like 1500's.

Maylie was singing "baa baa black sheep, any any wool!" over and over again. then she started singing "She is a princess, any any wool!" I think she knows the words better now though. ;-)

We make up songs too... "How much is that horse in the window? the one with the long flowing tail! How much is that horse in the window? I do hope that horse is for sale!" (she gets mad if I try to change the "for sale" line to something else to rhyme with some other body part in the other line. And now she gets corrects me if I change it.. like I said a curly tail for a horse, and she said "NO!!! That is a pig!!!! Horse has a long flowing tail!" Oh, excuuuuuse me!!

[conuly]

So you're thinking that Mother Goose = Nursery Rhymes and vice versa, right? (Just to clarify this in my mind.)

Of course, "How much is that Doggy in the Window" is more recent... does it qualify as a nr-in-training? I'm not being persnickety, I'm trying, albeit clumsily, to clarify things in my mind. I've been reading too much ozarque lately, and it's got me thinking about things too esoterically. Though I'm still not at the point of pondering the meaning of "even" yet.

*looks up Mother Goose* When was that first printed, anyway?

[mayna.livejournal.com]

I never really thought about it too much.
Try here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhymes

I thought the doggy in the window song is just a children's song...

[conuly]

Don't think about it too much. Seriously - don't. It's the kind of one-sided conversation that can only end in a gunshot :P (B5, nursery rhymes - yeah, they go together. Sure. Uh-huh!)

[marveen.livejournal.com]

For your further consideration, jumprope rhymes. (They often overlap with nursery rhymes.)

And this is a fictional one from Sheri S. Tepper, but I thought of it when I read your post:

On the road, the old road, a tower made of stone.
In the tower hangs a bell which cannot ring alone.
Shadow bell rang the dark, Daylight bell the dawn;
In the tower hung the bells, now the tower's gone.
One, two, three, four....

[leora.livejournal.com]

I know fictional nursery rhymes :)

Wrinkley Grandma Rosey
Rock a pock a posey
Lift off, drift off
We all fall down

That's believed to be an earlier version of the familiar one where the second line is Rockets all are rosey, which is believed to date back far into the mists of lost history to when humans were first colonizing the universe. Who knows, its origins may even be older than that.

There's also:
Twinkle twinkle golden star
I can reach you though you're far
Close my mouth and find my head
Find a worm that's striped with red
Feed it to the turtle shell
Then go to sleep for all is well

Alas, that one didn't age as well, because it has the computer using rolls of tape, but it's directions for launching the rocket to get back home, passed down through nursery rhyme through the generations until it could be used.

On a less fictional note, a lot of nursery rhymes date back to the period of time when dancing was seen as evil, but circle dances were allowed. So things like Ring around the rosey are just directions for how to do a fun dance.

Oh, and the second verse to the standard twinkle twinkle deserves to be better known:

When the shining sun is gone
When he nothing shines upon
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle all the night
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

At my height, I knew 6 different variants of twinkle, twinkle. The fictional one listed above. The second verse of the fictional one. The two real stanzas. The Lewis Carroll perversion. And the scintillate, scintillate... version.

[conuly]

There's well more than two real verses to Twinkle, Twinkle, if I could remember them.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oops, I think it's Wrinkley Grandma Mosey... I don't think they reuse rosy. It's just that proper nouns are harder to remember.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Are you accepting lullabyes as nursery rhymes?

[conuly]

No, but I'd love to read 'em anyway.

5

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I only know one in Spanish and it varies from country to country, but here it is:

Sana, sana, colita de rana
Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.

Get better, get better, frog's tail
If you don't get better today, you'll get better tomorrow.

In Argentina and Nicaragua of course it goes "Saná, saná..." (those wacky alternate verb conjugations!) and in Colombia IIRC they say "patitas de rana" (frog's feet) instead of "colita de rana."

You see it all over the place; there's a famous Mafalda cartoon of her reciting it to a globe, and it came up in the book I'm in the middle of (Delirio by Laura Restrepo).

[rachelkachel]

My dad used to sing a lot of them to me but I think he was making up at least some of the tunes. Jack and Jill particularly comes to mind, I think that one has an "official" tune but I couldn't tell you where to find it and I can't exactly sing it over the web.

On number 5... not really what you're asking, but if you ever come across a book called Mots D'Heures - Gousses, Rames it's extremely funny. It's intelligible French but when you read it out loud (with correct French pronunciation) it's English nursery rhymes. On that note, are you familiar with Anguish Languish? Unfortunately, they're both apparently out of print...

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Jingle bells! Batman smells!
Robin laid an egg!
Batmobile broke its wheel
And Joker got away!

This one's been in circulation for decades. :)

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

I've got an unusual answer for number 5.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_global_schoolyard_rhymes.php

[mayna.livejournal.com]

Aren't nursery rhymes ones from centuries ago? So anything you'd make up today wouldn't be a nursery rhyme. But I don't think they traditionally had tunes with them, so like Row Row Row your boat would be a son gand not a nursery rhyme.

Maylie knows like all of them by heart. And most of our Laurie Berkner CD. It's funny to listen to her singing Oh Susanna.

I think Little Jack Horner is my favorite. Mostly because when she was littler, I taught her hand motions with it, and it was just so cute to see her go "wittle jack honer, sat in coner, eating kissmas pie. he put in his fum.....!!! pull out pum!!!!! and said what good boy I!" (or something like that, it's been awhile since she talked like that)

[conuly]

1. That's what I'm asking! Asking me again isn't fair.

Seriously, though - is it a closed canon? I mean, probably "A peanut sat on a railroad track" wouldn't become a nursery rhyme *now*, just a popular short song. But what about in 100 years? 200? 300? Can it, in the future, become a nursery rhyme? How old does it have to be?

Is Mother Goose the only allowed source of nursery rhymes?

2. Listening to young children sing is always funny, and adorable in that heart-tearing way. I'm not sure if Ana's rendition of "Baa baa black/white/brown/green/yellow/whatever sheep" is cutest, or "Sumer is acumin in" (SING CU, CONNIE, SING CU!). Yes, I just posted this so I could boast that my niece rather gratiutiously knows a song in Middle English (is it Middle English? I can't keep them all straight).

3. Son gand? I thought it was just a round. *is all confuzzled*

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

3's a typo-- song and

[conuly]

D'oh!

And I really thought it was an obscure musical term.

*blushes and hides*

[mayna.livejournal.com]

I don't know how long it would take for something to become a nursery rhyme. But I think all the ones we have are like REALLY old, like 1500's.

Maylie was singing "baa baa black sheep, any any wool!" over and over again. then she started singing "She is a princess, any any wool!" I think she knows the words better now though. ;-)

We make up songs too... "How much is that horse in the window? the one with the long flowing tail! How much is that horse in the window? I do hope that horse is for sale!" (she gets mad if I try to change the "for sale" line to something else to rhyme with some other body part in the other line. And now she gets corrects me if I change it.. like I said a curly tail for a horse, and she said "NO!!! That is a pig!!!! Horse has a long flowing tail!" Oh, excuuuuuse me!!

[conuly]

So you're thinking that Mother Goose = Nursery Rhymes and vice versa, right? (Just to clarify this in my mind.)

Of course, "How much is that Doggy in the Window" is more recent... does it qualify as a nr-in-training? I'm not being persnickety, I'm trying, albeit clumsily, to clarify things in my mind. I've been reading too much ozarque lately, and it's got me thinking about things too esoterically. Though I'm still not at the point of pondering the meaning of "even" yet.

*looks up Mother Goose* When was that first printed, anyway?

[mayna.livejournal.com]

I never really thought about it too much.
Try here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhymes

I thought the doggy in the window song is just a children's song...

[conuly]

Don't think about it too much. Seriously - don't. It's the kind of one-sided conversation that can only end in a gunshot :P (B5, nursery rhymes - yeah, they go together. Sure. Uh-huh!)

[marveen.livejournal.com]

For your further consideration, jumprope rhymes. (They often overlap with nursery rhymes.)

And this is a fictional one from Sheri S. Tepper, but I thought of it when I read your post:

On the road, the old road, a tower made of stone.
In the tower hangs a bell which cannot ring alone.
Shadow bell rang the dark, Daylight bell the dawn;
In the tower hung the bells, now the tower's gone.
One, two, three, four....

[leora.livejournal.com]

I know fictional nursery rhymes :)

Wrinkley Grandma Rosey
Rock a pock a posey
Lift off, drift off
We all fall down

That's believed to be an earlier version of the familiar one where the second line is Rockets all are rosey, which is believed to date back far into the mists of lost history to when humans were first colonizing the universe. Who knows, its origins may even be older than that.

There's also:
Twinkle twinkle golden star
I can reach you though you're far
Close my mouth and find my head
Find a worm that's striped with red
Feed it to the turtle shell
Then go to sleep for all is well

Alas, that one didn't age as well, because it has the computer using rolls of tape, but it's directions for launching the rocket to get back home, passed down through nursery rhyme through the generations until it could be used.

On a less fictional note, a lot of nursery rhymes date back to the period of time when dancing was seen as evil, but circle dances were allowed. So things like Ring around the rosey are just directions for how to do a fun dance.

Oh, and the second verse to the standard twinkle twinkle deserves to be better known:

When the shining sun is gone
When he nothing shines upon
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle all the night
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

At my height, I knew 6 different variants of twinkle, twinkle. The fictional one listed above. The second verse of the fictional one. The two real stanzas. The Lewis Carroll perversion. And the scintillate, scintillate... version.

[conuly]

There's well more than two real verses to Twinkle, Twinkle, if I could remember them.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oops, I think it's Wrinkley Grandma Mosey... I don't think they reuse rosy. It's just that proper nouns are harder to remember.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Are you accepting lullabyes as nursery rhymes?

[conuly]

No, but I'd love to read 'em anyway.

5

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I only know one in Spanish and it varies from country to country, but here it is:

Sana, sana, colita de rana
Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.

Get better, get better, frog's tail
If you don't get better today, you'll get better tomorrow.

In Argentina and Nicaragua of course it goes "Saná, saná..." (those wacky alternate verb conjugations!) and in Colombia IIRC they say "patitas de rana" (frog's feet) instead of "colita de rana."

You see it all over the place; there's a famous Mafalda cartoon of her reciting it to a globe, and it came up in the book I'm in the middle of (Delirio by Laura Restrepo).

[rachelkachel]

My dad used to sing a lot of them to me but I think he was making up at least some of the tunes. Jack and Jill particularly comes to mind, I think that one has an "official" tune but I couldn't tell you where to find it and I can't exactly sing it over the web.

On number 5... not really what you're asking, but if you ever come across a book called Mots D'Heures - Gousses, Rames it's extremely funny. It's intelligible French but when you read it out loud (with correct French pronunciation) it's English nursery rhymes. On that note, are you familiar with Anguish Languish? Unfortunately, they're both apparently out of print...