Golden Book Of Nursery Rhymes Part 2

The Real Meaning of Nursery Rhymes NPRSex, death and cruelty. Chris Roberts, the author of Heavy Words Lightly Thrown The Reason Behind the Rhyme, tells Debbie Elliott what lurks beneath the surface of those verses we learned as children. DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host Baa, Baa Black Sheep is actually a protest against taxation. Who knew And Sing a Song of Sixpence Its about King Henry VIII and his break from the Catholic Church. London librarian Chris Roberts was moonlighting as a walking tour guide when he discovered that nursery rhymes had juicy histories. Now hes compiled those tales into a book. Golden Book Of Nursery Rhymes Part 2' title='Golden Book Of Nursery Rhymes Part 2' />Its called Heavy Words Lightly Thrown The Reason Behind the Rhyme. He joins me now from our London bureau. Welcome, Chris. Mr. CHRIS ROBERTS Author, The Reason Behind the Rhyme Thank you. ELLIOTT I want to read the first line from the introduction in your book. Here it is. It should come as no surprise that nursery rhymes are full of sex, death and cruelty. Now, really, that does come as somewhat of a surprise to me. Mr. ROBERTS Ill pick an obvious one. A Very Special House Kids Pets In the midst of the forest, You can hardly see, Theres a charming little house, That lives between the trees. This super handy resource features a basic book review writing frame template. Great for assessing familiarity with the book, and for encouraging your children to. Golden Book Of Nursery Rhymes Part 2' title='Golden Book Of Nursery Rhymes Part 2' />Ding dong bell, pussy in the well. Who put her in Little Johnny Flynn. Its quite clearly the tale of a little boy putting a cat in a well. And as we all know, cats cant swim. Some are more blatantly cruel, and others are more coded in their meanings. Its to do with words in English changing the meaning over time. Its to do with changing assumptions of what we think of as childhood. Childhood is a relatively recent phenomena, certainly over the last couple of hundred years, that children are seen as very separate from adults. So there would be no reason in the past not to have what would now be considered adult themes in rhymes that children could hear and sing. ELLIOTT Well, lets get to a little sex and debauchery from your book, Goosey Goosey Gander. Why dont you recite that for us firstMr. ROBERTS Goosey Goosey Gander, where shall I wander Upstairs and downstairs and in my ladys chamber. There I met an old man who wouldnt say his prayers, so I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs. Where do I begin with this A key this is a very good example of a word that has changed its meaning over the centuries. Now in the 1. 6th, 1. England, the word goose meant prostitute. The phrase to be bitten by a goose meant to contact a venereal disease from the working girls. And this rhymes quite interesting. Theres a number of theories about this rhyme. One is that it ties into Henry VIII and his taking land from the Catholic Church. There were two prongs to Henrys attack. One was he took the land the other was a propaganda offensive, and this rhyme becomes part of that. The rhyme associates the Catholic Church with prostitution, and this is reinforced slightly more in the second verse, where you have There I met an old man who wouldnt say his prayers, took him by the left leg, threw him down the stairs. The not saying the prayers bit is relating to the new English Prayer Book that was a Protestant Prayer Book and the left leg is I dont know if this works in America, actually, but in England, left leg or left footer is a term for Catholic. And so there you have the rhyme linking the Catholic Church to immoral acts. So, yeah. ELLIOTT So from sex and religion to taxes why dont we go Mr. ROBERTS Why dont we Yes. Yes. ELLIOTT We talked a little bit at the beginning of our conversation about Baa, Baa Black Sheep. Im going to recite this one Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool Yes, sir. Yes, sir, three bags full. One for the master and one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives down the lane. I guess I can see that this would have something to do with paying taxes, but not really. Soundbite of laughter Mr. ROBERTS This is quite an old rhyme, actually this goes back to the 1. And the wealth of England was very much based on wool. The lord chancellor still sits on a wool sack in the House of Commons to remind everyone about that. And Baa, Baa Black Sheep was a lament from the farmers of England who in the rhyme are represented by the little boy. The other two figures in the rhyme, the master and the dame, are the master is the king or the kings representatives the local nobility would collect revenue on behalf of the king and the dame is the church. So you have these very punitive tax rates of 6. Thats the basis of the rhyme. Its an early example of no taxation without representation, I believe. ELLIOTT Next, can you read us Sing a Song of Sixpence Mr. ROBERTS Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye, four and 2. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing. Now wasnt that a dainty dish to set before a king The king was in his counting house counting out his money the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes when along came a blackbird and it nipped off her nose. Now potentially certainly the first part, is just a description of a meal, about baking, baking birds in a pie and the whistling of the steam when the pie is cooked. The other theory again, its relating to Henry VIII. ELLIOTT Again Mr. ROBERTS. more specifically I know, again. There seems to be a golden age of nursery rhymes in Britain where they from basically Henry VIIIs time, which is 1. Tudor monarchs to the end of the Stuarts, which is a couple of years later. And it was a time when England was sorting itself out religiously. It was a time of religious wars, it was a time of great divisions in society. We had our own civil war during that period. And a lot of the rhymes seem to come from that time. It seems to be a great flowering for English folk song. But the theory with the counting house bit is that the maid is Ann Boleyn, whos Henrys second wife, and that the queen is his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. And its telling the story the first queen is off in the parlor, kind of out of the action and that the second queen, who Henry divorced and then executed, has her nose snipped off by the blackbirds, which here apparently represent the church. Mr. ROBERTS Well, Chris Roberts, well be coming back to you in the coming weeks for some more reasons behind the rhymes. Chris Roberts is the author of Heavy Words Lightly Thrown. Hes also a librarian at Lambeth College in south London and the proprietor of F and M Walking Tours. Thank you. Mr. ROBERTS Thank you very much. ELLIOTT If youd like to offer your comments, in rhyme or prose, go to our Web site, npr. Contact us, select WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and send us your thoughts. Please tell us where you live, include a phone number and tell us how to pronounce your name. Asterix Y Obelix Pdf Gratis. Copyright 2. 00. NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb. Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Looking for a Childhood Book Heres How. Does Pennsylvania Have Enhanced Drivers License'>Does Pennsylvania Have Enhanced Drivers License. Printer friendly version. Whoops Flat Stanley is looking for a book His own book, first issued in 1. Tomi Ungerer. He wont find a nice copy  Its a very rare book. Every day we receive emails from people searching for childhood books. Im sorry but we no longer research emailed book queries. Please read this page carefully and you may find some alternate ways of searching for your book yourself. You can also post your query on the Comment section below. Since I personally moderate Disqus Comments daily, I will see any query you post and will answer if I am familiar with the book. However, there are several contributers to this page who are more knowledgeable about modern books than I am. We also highly recommend  www. Loganberrybooks. com. CONTENTSSearching for a Book Online Selling One or Two Books. Finding and Valuing an Older Book. Describing a book for your query. Followed by a Comments section, which you may use to post a query. Our Old Childrens Books Search First, its worth trying our own Advanced Search. About 34 of our childrens books, are on this site. Although only about 5. Keywords tags. These can be searched using the Description and Keyword field or the simple search on the website. We are specialist childrens booksellers. There are better sources on the net for inquiring about most childrens books, especially readers, series, modern, or mass market books. Please try the links below before contacting us Absolute Best Loganberry Books. Loganberry Books home page. Select Nostalgia from the menu. Look through other peoples queries and Solved Mysteries post your own book query. See this Loganberry page for childrens storybooks or anthologies Loganberry Books Anthology Page,Its in there somewhere ABE Books Advanced Search. Abebooks Advanced Search. For best results use only Title, Author, Date Range, and Keywords. You will be able to limit your search further once you reach the results page. This is the best book search engine on the net, from a huge Canadian company originally started by booksellers. Torrent Games Xbox 360 Jtag Modding more. Millions of books of all kinds from dealers all over the world, some not found in libraries. Most of the English language books ever published World. Cat. World. Cat. org lists entries from catalogues of libraries in English speaking countries around the world. You should limit your search at least to Format Book, and Audience Juvenile. You can do this on the advanced search page or once you arrive at the results, using the left hand column, as with abe. Often you can find more about the content of a title by going to an individual library holding. Because you wont get as many duplicate titles, Worldcat works better for common titles than Abe or Amazon. Ask the experts Steve Santi. For a Little Golden, Elf, or similar book, try the forum on http www. Pictures are best Once you have narrowed down a possible title, try Amazon. Google. com Images for a picture. The colour option on Google is working better and better. Its a real help. I have started using Images on bing. IDs easier.   Amazon and Google pictures are not accurate though, so use the Seller Supplied Pictures  not the Stock pictures on Abebooks for specific editions. Look in the left hand column to limit your search to these. A few words can help If all you can remember is a few words, try Google. Put the words in quotes. Use only one or two, essential, easily spelled, keywords. Try this sample Google search   I think I can  train. Remember that one Probably the easiest place for an individual to sell books like those above is on www. Amazon. com. Look up your book, click on the picture, then look in the blue box for Have one to sell and click on Sell yours here. Amazons instructions for selling are very clear. If, and only if, Amazon has listed the book in the past, you will be able to list also. Ebay is also very easy and inexpensive to use for a few books and it allows you more room to describe the books. For pricing your book, it is easier and more accurate to use the Abebooks. Advanced Search to find a price. Then double check on Amazon because prices there are sometimes higher. Amazons Search is really not set up for out of print books. Condition, especially the presence of a jacket if called for,  and publication data are extremely important, but just record what you see, dont try to grade or ascertain edition and printing. The more care you put into describing your books, the more likely you are to sell them. Note We do not purchase books online, sight unseen. Please do not offer them to us. Thank you. If you have a collection or several rare books you are interested in selling to us, especially if you live in the Northwest, please look on http oldchildrensbooks. We are happy to assist you in finding a half remembered book from the 1. Our email address is on the Contact Us page. We do not run a formal Book Search and we will not order books for you, but well try to point you in the right direction. For a more modern book read the suggestions above or post a Commentquery on this page. We never value a book over the net, nor do other reputable booksellers. If you have an older book which seems to have value, you might want to look at our page Buying and Selling Childrens Books. Look through the suggestions below. If the process seems too complicated, we are pleased to recommend an very experienced childrens specialist bookseller who does formal book searches and keeps a want list for customers. Jeryl Metz Woitachdba Jeryl Metz, Books. West End Ave, 1. ANew York, NY 1. Tel. 2. 12 8. 64 3. Email Jmwbooksaol. Website www. abebooks. SUNNY Basic Information The latest possible year of publication, i. Your estimate as to the range of possible publication dates. Picture book or childrens novel. Source Library School An older family book Anything at all you remember about the book Title,Author,Illustrator,Binding,Size,Phrases or refrains,Bits of plot. Illustrations the quickest way to ID, the hardest quality to describe. Colour Separate plates or in textStyle Other illustrators the pictures call to mindChoose your search words carefully Unusual words really help wallaby works better than bear as a search word. Names which could be spelled in various ways are hard to search Peatie Peety Petey Peetie Peaty. Words which could be hyphenated or not also take time, especially with older books which may follow different conventions dog house, dog house, doghouse. Avoid abbreviations, they could be spelled out or not DrDoctor. Mr. Mister Co. Company  Inc. Avoid possessives, although sometimes it doesnt matter. See also our Links for Collectors in the Collectors Corner. Guidelines This forum is monitored by the owner of this site, Old Childrens Books. Only a few book sleuths are whitelisted on this forum. All other pending posts are reviewed individually and approved at least daily. Please understand that direct contact information andor commercial solicitations will be removed from your post. Post only book. ID related posts or links. No sales offers, please. Include no contact information in the body of your comment. Sign up for Disqus to be notified of responses. Many, many thanks to all the wonderful readers who help to ID these books  We also appreciate those who take the time to thank the contributors for researching their books.