General Chat

orange and lemons say the bells of st clements
you owe me five farthings say the bells of st martins
when well that be say the bells of stepney
i do not know says the great bell of bow
here comes the candle to light you to bed
here comes the chopper to chop off your head
chip chop, chip chop

They were bleddy tough in ye olden days....had to be I guess :-(

Nightmares anyone ;-) :-D

blimey Mau - sounds like a horror film

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

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

The Mary being referred to is believed by many to be “Bloody Mary,” the Catholic queen of England who did a pretty good job of filling graveyards with Protestants. The garden referred to is actually a graveyard.

The “silver bells and cockle shells” were instruments of torture.
and the “Maids” in the poem was the original guillotine! :-(

an interesting and probably true point Ann

by then people will no longer be using spoken words, everything will be by text and language a\s we know it now will no longer exist

Who knows Errol, I won't be around to hear them ;-) :-D

I wonder if in the way that we think of nursery rhymes, there will be a similar thing in 200 years time (assuming North Korea hasn't blown us off the map).
Will kids be singing pop songs in the playground - after all, many have a political meaning or sub-meaning to them

Oooo at my Brownies they are. we recently did a skipping challenge and used loads of them.

that's good to know

don't suppose all the skipping rhymes are still on the go?

I still teach them to my Grandchildren and also use them at Rainbows and Brownies

teach my grandchildren all the old ones Ann :-D

do children still learn them or are they fading out - nursery rhymes, not children :-D

Is it me or does the word Horner (HORNER) look identical to Homer (HOMER) on screen? I'm sure there is a joke there somewhere

very interesting stories behind our nursery rhymes,

nursery rhymes were about the social history of the time,made into rhymes and passed on through the generations so no one forgets. :-D

wow! Thank you so much Ann. I didn't know that but just goes to show how so many of our nursery rhymes go back a very long way

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said "What a good boy am I!"



16th Century History origin of the Little Jack Horner story?
Little Jack Horner was reputed to have been the Steward to Richard Whiting (1461 - 1539) the Bishop of Glastonbury. The Steward had an important role and was responsible for managing the household, collecting taxes and keeping accounts.

The Church, the King and the Gold
Glastonbury was the largest and wealthiest Abbey in England and this Benedictine Monastery owned extensive lands and manors in the county of Somerset. Between 1536 and 1540, after breaking away from the Catholic Church, King Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell set about the systematic Dissolution of all of the Monasteries in England. The reason for was to loot the monasteries of their gold and silver and seize the monastic lands. By 1539 Glastonbury was the only religious house left in Somerset and it was only at matter of time before Glastonbury Abbey was also seized.

The Bribe
It is rumoured that the Bishop tried to bribe the King. He sent his Steward, Richard Whiting, with a gift of twelve title deeds to various English manorial estates. The deeds were said to have been secreted in a pie (valuables were often hidden in this bizarre fashion to thwart thieves). Whiting (Little Jack Horner) realised that the bribe would do no good and was said to have stolen the deeds to the manor of Mells (it being the real 'plum' of the twelve manors).

The Traitor and the Execution
The remaining eleven manors were given to the crown but to no avail. The old Bishop was convicted of treason for remaining loyal to Rome. The jury included his treacherous steward Horner who found Bishop Whiting guilty and sent the old man to a terrible death of being hung, drawn and quartered on Glastonbury Tor. The Abbey was destroyed. Following the destruction of the abbey the steward, Horner moved into the Manor of Mells. Whether Horner actually stole the deeds to the Manor or was rewarded with them for helping to convict the Bishop of Glastonbury is not known but the Manor of Mells became the property of the Horner family who lived there until the 20th century.

The first publication date for the lyrics to the Little Jack Horner rhyme is 1725.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

Who was Humpty Dumpty?
Humpty Dumpty was a colloquial term used in 15th century England to describe someone who was fat or obese - giving rise to lots of theories pertaining to the identity of Humpty Dumpty. However, in this case the question should be not Who was Humpty Dumpty but What was Humpty Dumpty? Humpty Dumpty was in fact an unusually large canon which was mounted on the protective wall of "St. Mary's Wall Church" in Colchester, England. It was intended to protect the Parliamentarian stronghold of Colchester which was in the temporarily in control of the Royalists during the period of English history, described as the English Civil War ( 1642 - 1649). A shot from a Parliamentary canon succeeded in damaging the wall underneath Humpty Dumpty causing the canon to fall to the ground. The Royalists 'all the King's men' attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall but even with the help of ' all the King's horses' failed in their task and Colchester fell to the Parliamentarians after a siege lasting eleven weeks.

there was a young girl - um, never mind :-D