The Story Behind Nursery Rhymes - thanks Jordan!

Day to day children sing nursery rhymes and learn nursery rhymes but never think of the story behind them. We don’t know how long ago nursery rhymes began but believe it was a way of people speaking out towards leaders when they didn’t have freedom of speech, this led to children and adults passing them on to friends and family even the simplest of nursery rhymes have meaning behind them lessons in a play of words, the rhymes cover every subject a child is interested in chasing games, counting games, bridges they have crossed and the activities that go around them and these are just some examples of day to day nursery rhymes that have a lot of meaning behind them.

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty Maids all in a row.

This poem refers to Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary who was the daughter of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic; “Mary Mary quite contrary” is adverting towards bloody Mary being quite crazy. The garden referred to in the story is an allusion to the graveyards where all who dared to continue with the protestant faith were buried. “With silver bells and cockle shells” is referring to the instruments of tortures, silver bells were two bits of metal where the suspected protestant placed his fingers between and watched them get crushed on by one, and the cockle shells were believed to be for the genitals!

“And pretty maids all in a row” The 'maids' were a device to behead people called the Maiden. Beheading a victim was fraught with problems. It could take up to 11 blows to actually sever the head; the victim often resisted and had to be chased around the scaffold. Margaret Pole (1473 - 1541), Countess of Salisbury did not go willingly to her death and had to be chased and hacked at by the Executioner. These problems led to the invention of a mechanical instrument (now known as the guillotine) called the Maiden - shortened to Maids in the Mary Mary Nursery Rhyme. The Maiden had long been in use in England before Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI, had a copy constructed from the Maiden which had been used in Halifax in Yorkshire. Ironically, Lord Morton fell from favour and was the first to experience the Maiden in Scotland!

Therefore nursery rhymes and children’s songs are not what they are put out to be in this day and age, and some have very interesting serious stories behind them!