A post for Jenn...
Jul. 11th, 2005 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Gotta love that nursery rhyme.
Unfortunately, somebody afterwards pulled out the story about "Ring around the Rosie" being about the Plague.
And again, I say, that's just an urban legend. I haven't done any firsthand research, and I don't intend to, because every last reference I've seen has scads of information of it's own, starting with the "nope, didn't see it written until centuries after the plague was gone" bit, through the "well, the older versions are very unlike the one we're used to now, and don't mention ashes at all, many of them also don't mention falling down in any sense whatsoever" information, with various versions collected both historically and from modern oral tradition.
No evidence for the plague story whatsoever.
The only interesting thing about it is that people do insist on telling their children about the plague story. That would make for an interesting study: why do we do this to our kids? It's bad enough we sing them songs about death (rock-a-bye-baby) and eyes being gouged out (hush-a-bye, don't you cry), but we turn honest-to-god innocent nursery rhymes into epidemics. I don't get it.
500 years from now, they'll be saying that the Hokey-Pokey (with slightly changed lyrics, of course) is obviously all about autism from that "horrible epidemic", see if they don't. Or maybe they'll pick epilipsy, but that's not quite common, is it? Bit of nonsense, when it's clearly all about sex.
Unfortunately, somebody afterwards pulled out the story about "Ring around the Rosie" being about the Plague.
And again, I say, that's just an urban legend. I haven't done any firsthand research, and I don't intend to, because every last reference I've seen has scads of information of it's own, starting with the "nope, didn't see it written until centuries after the plague was gone" bit, through the "well, the older versions are very unlike the one we're used to now, and don't mention ashes at all, many of them also don't mention falling down in any sense whatsoever" information, with various versions collected both historically and from modern oral tradition.
No evidence for the plague story whatsoever.
The only interesting thing about it is that people do insist on telling their children about the plague story. That would make for an interesting study: why do we do this to our kids? It's bad enough we sing them songs about death (rock-a-bye-baby) and eyes being gouged out (hush-a-bye, don't you cry), but we turn honest-to-god innocent nursery rhymes into epidemics. I don't get it.
500 years from now, they'll be saying that the Hokey-Pokey (with slightly changed lyrics, of course) is obviously all about autism from that "horrible epidemic", see if they don't. Or maybe they'll pick epilipsy, but that's not quite common, is it? Bit of nonsense, when it's clearly all about sex.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:32 pm (UTC)When you wake, you'll have cake, and all the pretty little horses
Blacks and bays, dapples and greys, ten and six a little horses
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy little baby.
Way down yonder, in the meadow, there's a poor little lamby
The bees and the butterflies, peckin' out his eyes, the lamby cried for his mammy.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-11 08:39 pm (UTC)It would've been soft, though, since the only song I ever sing at full volume is Shenandoah, because, y'know, it's Shenandoah. And John-Jacob-Jingleheimer Schmidt, because that's the rule.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 06:11 am (UTC)... Wow, that is freaky. And here I thought the sad part of the song was that the lamb was alone. Wow.
P.S. Do you know that song, "Cruel Sister", where the one sister gets pushed off a bridge and the minstrel makes her bones and hair into an instrument?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-12 01:03 pm (UTC)Still, on further reflection, I must wonder why people do sing such songs to their children. I suppose I should ask my mom.