There was an old lady who swallowed a fly....

Sarah - posted on 02/24/2011

hmm my grandmother is cornish and her and her mother have only ever told me the whiskey story...strange but it goes to show theres many different stories

Sal - posted on 02/24/2011

i've always known the cannon version, but we are from gool convict stock down here

Toni - posted on 02/24/2011

http://www.rhymes.org.uk/humpty_dumpty.h...

It was what we have always been taught, maybe that's because I'm British though? I've never heard the whiskey one :-)

Sarah - posted on 02/24/2011

Toni i have never read about that..ive only heard the whiskey story

Toni - posted on 02/23/2011

Sarah Humpty Dumpty was a canon in England during the English Civil war, the wall under it was damaged and the cannon fell - the kings men used their horses to get it back onto the wall but couldn't.

Sarah - posted on 02/22/2011

apparently humpty dumpty is a brandy drink boiled with ale...could be the bottle falling off the wall

Iris - posted on 02/22/2011

I'm from a Country full of stories of trolls and evil elves. During Christmas time, you have to be good because if you are naughty "Gryla" (a troll) would put you in her sack, take you up in the mountain and eat you and the other naughty kids.
We also had he Christmas Cat. If you didn't get any new clothes before Christmas, it would come and eat you.

We also have a lot of stories about elves switching out our infants and destroying us with one wish.

I was brought up with fairy tails like Hansel and Gretel, where their parents left them out to fend for themselves and the wicked witch was making Hansel bigger so she could eat him. All the Grimm's fairytails and the HC Andersen without the PG.
And I consider myself fairly normal after all these stories.
So, swallowing a fly and die...... I think our children can get pass it without even a light trauma.

Sharon - posted on 02/22/2011

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her irish stew, along came a spider and sat down beside her so she ate him up too.

Sharon - posted on 02/22/2011

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the kings horses and all the kings men said "stuff him, he's only an egg"!!

Stephanie - posted on 02/21/2011

Of all the abuse I was handed as a child I can say, at least not in memory, my native mother never hanged me from a tree. ; ) ***Thanks God for small blessings*** ; )

Jenni - posted on 02/21/2011

Hmmm interesting... apparently Rock a Bye Baby has an american origin. Native Americans use to hang their cradles in tree branches to protect them... I imagine against bears, wolves, snakes, cougars, etc.

Toni - posted on 02/21/2011

I was in the library earlier and picked up a Ring o Ring o Roses book and they have changed the line - ashes in the water, ashes in the sea to fishes in the water, fishes in the sea - what was so harmful about ashes I don't understand why the author felt the need to change that one line considering what the entire poem is about in the first place it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Sarah - posted on 02/21/2011

ahh its like in ring a ring a rosie its "they all jumped down" when i was taught "and we all fall down" cos theyre dead from the black plague :| personally i like the original

Sneaky - posted on 02/21/2011

Have you watched the 'Wizard of Oz' lately???? It was one of my favourites as a child and now I watch it with my family as my husband points out the first degree murder Dorothy and the Wizard plan of the Wicked Witch . . . . . just to start with, there are more disturbing incidents!

Sharon - posted on 02/21/2011

http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/...

Cathy - posted on 02/21/2011

Humpty Dumpty was actually a cannon that sat on top of the wall around Colchester. The Royalists lost Colchester to the Parliamentarians shortly after the wall beneath humpty dumpty was destroyed because they couldn't get him back together on the wall.

Sharon - posted on 02/21/2011

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the kings horses and all the kings men said " oh shit, not scrambled eggs again" !

Stifler's - posted on 02/20/2011

I never got the rockabye baby one. That has to be a metaphor.

Meghan - posted on 02/20/2011

When we sing those songs, I don't think of anything other than how much he is enjoying it. He certainly doesn't find anything morbid in it-great thing about toddlers. Like Mary said in the OP, I wasn't scarred by finding out what the context or meaning in the songs were, I doubt J will be either.

Johnny - posted on 02/20/2011

I had that first one on my bedroom wall as a kid. It was a cross stitch that my Grandmother (who is ironically an atheist) made for me. It was this cute little girl praying in front of a puppy and some flowers.

I was thinking of another one that I always sing to my daughter that is a bit "death-like":

Rock-a-bye baby
In the tree top
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bow breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

She loves it and so did I when I was her age. I think I was around 10 when it occurred to me that my mom was singing about a baby falling out of a tree.

Stephanie - posted on 02/20/2011

The words to children's prayers have even been changed. It used to be:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

And now it's:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
Lord be with me through the night
And keep me til the morning light.

The newer version is nice too but it's funny that people are afraid to mention death to a child anymore. My kids(3&4) wouldnt understand what it (death, die) meant anyway.

Julianne - posted on 02/20/2011

a pocket full of posies was for the people who were already infected, they stunk from the plague so the flowers would hide the smell.

Good Day! - posted on 02/20/2011

Thanks for looking up "ashes ashes" Cathy.

I'd never heard the Koockburra song until recently. It's on one of my daughter's CD's and the words are "how gay your life must be."

Anyone ever read the original "Little Black Sambo"? The illustrations and the dialect it was written in were considered racist. That's been changed too. I'm almost positive there were no derogatory remarks in the original. You can barely get an original anymore, but my mom happened to keep hers.

Toni - posted on 02/20/2011

I always sing this version of Ring o Ring o Roses

Ring o ring o roses - (the ring rash when you had the plague)
A pocketful of posies - (to protect against the plague)
Atishoo, Atishoo we all fall down - (was to signify having the plague and dying)

Ashes in the water, ashes in the sea - (the Great Fire of London)
We all jump up with a one, two, three - (people who survived because the Great fire ceased the spread of the plague).

I used to Love Mary Mary Quite Contrary (based on Mary 1st of England aka Bloody Mary) which is brutal when you know the meaning but I didn't understand it until I was much older and only once it was explained to me. I think that if a rhyme uses derogatory phrases such as the ones discussed earlier then yes they are right to change them but otherwise keep the rhymes the same.

Cathy - posted on 02/20/2011

LMAO!!!

Mabel - posted on 02/20/2011

@Julianne hey we have to eat some how! lol !

Julianne - posted on 02/20/2011

@cathy



Mary had a little lamb, her father shot him dead, now mary takes her lamb to school between to hunks of bread.

Jenni - posted on 02/20/2011

Yeah... I understand not sheltering children from history but they shouldn't be running around singing derogatory nursery ryhmes.

Stifler's - posted on 02/20/2011

Yes I do think it's inappropriate to encourage rhymes with nigger and stuff in them. But changing 'how gay your life must be' to 'how happy your life must be?' that is ludicrous. Gay still means happy in the dictionary last I checked.

Nikki - posted on 02/20/2011

I remembered another one, Eenie meenie miny moe, catch a nigger by the toe. Nigger was replaced by tiger. I agree with the change in this rhyme. The original version is rather disrespectful today.

Julianne - posted on 02/20/2011

well i dont want to hear a 4 year old running around singing about niggers and indians...learning about racial discrimination throughout history is completely different than teaching our children derogatory terms.

Kathy - posted on 02/20/2011

Re the ten little Indians - Agatha Christie's novel was originally published in the UK as "Ten Little Niggers." It was published in the US under the title of "Ten Little Indians" and also "And then there were none." I think 'Ten Little Soldiers" may have got a mention somewhere, too!

I read this novel first as "Ten Little Niggers," so I've always thought of it with that name. This title is based on the old nursery rhyme Ten little Niggers, and the events that take place are based on the words of this nursery rhyme. So changing the title has messed up all the references!
I think it's ridiculous to keep changing things to make ourselves feel better - our kids deserve to know how people felt and believed at various stages in history.

Jenni - posted on 02/20/2011

I guess there are plenty of disney movies that deal with the concept of death.

My 2 year old loves finding Nemo and always asks me "Where'd Coral (Nemo's mom) go?" She gets eaten by another fish before Nemo is born. So that's what I tell him. I don't soften it up for him. That other fish was hungry and she got eaten by him. Now when we eat fish he tells me he's eating Nemo. :/ he even says "Mmmm Nemo taste good!" after each bite. We had pork after we were watching Peppa Pig. He told me he wanted to eat Peppa Pig. When we use to look at his picture books he'd want to know what sound each animal made, or if he could hold them. Now he wants to know if he can eat them or what they eat.

I think early introduction to the concept of death takes the sting out of finding out later on about it. It's something all farm kids learn at an early age.

My son has also been to a funeral. I don't think there's any point in shielding them from such a natural part of life.

Cathy - posted on 02/20/2011

We used to sing
Kookaburra sits on a rusty nail, gets a splinter in his tail, cry kookaburra, cry kookaburra, how bad your life must be!

And
Mary had a little lamb, she tied it to a pylon, 10000 volts went up its ass and turned its wool to nylon.

Stifler's - posted on 02/20/2011

haha the people who wrote that tried to sue men at work for their down under song

Sal - posted on 02/20/2011

ohh the one that i was trying to think of was kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,, some school teacher tried to put "how happy your life must be" in stead of "how gay your life must be"

Sal - posted on 02/20/2011

we have always had atishoo for ring a rosie, i thought it was because you got sick with the plauge and the sneeze represented being sick, but ashes works too

Sal - posted on 02/20/2011

this does happen here too and i don;t think it should, we have a really old copy of henny penny where cocky locky, ducky daddles, turkey lurcky, and goosey loosey all get eaten by the big bad wolf.....and my kids love it

Stifler's - posted on 02/20/2011

I don't think they should. I love the way nursery rhymes capture and almost pay respect to times gone by.

Jocelyn - posted on 02/20/2011

Cathy yes it is!!!

Cathy - posted on 02/20/2011

@Jocelynit's about a woman who finds a human bone in a graveyard and makes soup with it! And then she gets haunted!!

Is that The Teeny Tiny Woman?
Rhys had that book new only a few years ago. It was his favourite for a long time!

Nicole - posted on 02/19/2011

I listened to the song about Kidnapping Santa Clause in The Nightmare Before Christmas and it is brutal.

A lot of songs have been changed so that now at playgroups, I never know which way a song will be sung.

Kathy - posted on 02/19/2011

It was always "Atishoo atishoo" here in Australia, even when i was a little girl (and I'm 56 now!)

I hate all the changes. I can even cope with the Cookie Monster, although we don't call them cookies here, and would never think of changing it to the Biscuit Monster!

Nikki - posted on 02/19/2011

Julianne you reminded me that was another song that was changed when I was teaching. Ten little Indians, they obviously were not concerned with the race factor but they changed it to "ten little Indian boys and girls" so that it wasn't gender biased!

I think it's a bit much, there are songs about all different races and genders, it would be a pretty boring world if we had to go as far as changing all songs and stories to ensure they didn't discriminate against anyone.

JuLeah - posted on 02/19/2011

I think we need to stop shielding children from life, from the consequences of their own actions, from small dangers, from hurt feelings, from striking out on the ball field, from failing a test for which they did not study, from waiting their turn, from waiting for what they want, from working for what they want, from honest feedback if their behavior is obnoxious .... the old women (sorry, woman of advanced years) ate a fly, a cat, a dog, a goat, a cow and a horse ... and yah, she died. The message, "Don't eat that much" it is good advice and I think we ought to leave the story alone

Jenn - posted on 02/19/2011

I don't think it should be changed. And here it's "Ashes ashes" but a lot of people also say "husha husha we all fall down".

Jocelyn - posted on 02/19/2011

I don't think we need to change them. Kids don't normally pick up on the morbid/violent/etc stuff.
For instance, I just found a childhood book of mine (one of those 1st reader-types) that I loved!
I read it to Conner, and it's about a woman who finds a human bone in a graveyard and makes soup with it! And then she gets haunted!!
That's some freaky shit.
But I never realized it was freaky until I was 23 LOL

Julianne - posted on 02/19/2011

I think the "one little two little three little indians..." should be changed...i watched a baby song video with my little brother when he was a baby. It had this nursery rhyme with a bunch of dark babies dressed in Native American head dresses stacking them in the shape of a tepee and singing that.quite racist i find..

Alyssa - posted on 02/19/2011

I haver an old nursery rhyme book and when my 5yo ask me to read it I must admit i am a bit shocked that I now understand the meaning behind the nursery rhymes...kind of interesting for me, a bit of a childhood revelation.....but he doesn't care!!

Jodi - posted on 02/19/2011

I think its ridiculous to even feel the need to change nursery rhymes and stories for kids. They are pretty much the same here as the ones I was brought up with - I've never changed anything. So far so good, my kids don't seem to have tortured souls :P