The Dark Side of Nursery Rhymes

When scrolling YouTube, you may have stumbled across the occasional Nursery Rhyme channel. They promise light-hearted songs and innocent fun, perfect for small children and their exhausted parents. These channels have amassed a huge number of views. This one in particular has over 100 million subscribers and is set to become the largest on the site. But lurking behind these playful songs lie dark and disturbing backstories. Rhymes believed to about the plague, slavery and in one instance, burying someone alive. But do they have any historical truth behind them or are they simply urban legends meant to frighten and entertain? Let's take a look at the gruesome and grim origins behind our beloved children's songs and separate the fact from the folklore as we delve into the dark side of Nursery Rhymes. We start with a familiar one, a classic childhood staple. At face value, this is a song about sheep and wool, right? Well, the controversy surrounding this Nursery Rhyme began in the late 80s and 90s when it was connected to slavery in the American South. Proponents of this view argue the following. The black sheep is a reference to the African descent of American slaves, the three bags full of wool reflects the cotton that slaves were forced to collect in large bags and the master-sheep relationship is reminiscent of master-slave language. This perceived connection has led schools to change the song's title to Bar-Bar Rainbow Sheep to disassociate it from slavery. However, many experts believe that the song actually has nothing to do with slavery, nor even America. Instead, the song is believed to have originated in Britain. The first written record of this song is from an English Nursery Rhyme book called Tom Thumb's Pretty Songbook. It was written in 1744 and is the oldest surviving collection of English Nursery Rhymes out there. It's older than the Declaration of Independence and so technically predates America itself. That said, slavery was still widespread whilst America was a British colony. Nowadays, people believe the song came from the Middle Ages, originating with the medieval tax on the wool trade. Known as the Great Wool Tax, it was set up by Edward I who needed extra money to pay for the Crusades, a series of brutal conflicts in the Holy Land. Under these new laws, English wool was heavily taxed. A third of a bag's price went to the king, another went to the church, and a final third went to the farmer. Thus, one for the master, being the king, one for the dame, is the church, the so-called bride of Christ, and one for the little boy who lives down the lane, the farmer's. So instead of being a rhyme about the slave trade, Bar-Bar Black Sheep is a medieval song about the money made from the heavy taxation of wool that was used later to fund the mass murder and slaughter of the Crusades. Perhaps a stretch, but nonetheless dark. Okay, moving on. This nursery rhyme is also attested in the songbook from 1744. You'll be familiar with the lyrics. They go as follows. Now this nursery rhyme has a handful of dark origins, but which one of them is the most plausible? An early explanation for the song came from Samuel Lang in 1844. He believed that the song describes a Viking raid, specifically Olaf II of Norway, who allegedly pillaged the town of The Norse saga, Heimskringla, has this strange verse. Lang believes that this skaldic verse was the basis of our nursery rhyme today, but from the perspective of the poor Londoners left to rebuild it. Experts argue that this translation of the Old Norse has been made to fit around the nursery rhyme and thus takes a lot of liberties in the translation. So whilst London Bridge was likely raided by the Vikings at some point in history, it was unlikely to have been the basis for this nursery rhyme. This next theory is far darker. Some speculate that the song is all about London Bridge and how people were buried alive within its foundations. So back in the day there was this punishment known as immurement, a grisly practice where people, sometimes even children, were buried alive within walls. The folklorist Alice Bertha Gomme believed that this story was within the nursery rhyme itself. She homed in on the line, take the keys and lock her up, somewhere later in the poem, and took it as a possible link to the immurement practice. But unfortunately for her, no skeletons of adults nor children have ever been unearthed in the foundations of London Bridge, so we can discount this theory for now. Okay, this third theory is the most likely candidate. It goes back to the idea that the bridge was destroyed a handful of times, but just not by the Vikings. Records show that in 1209 King John ordered London Bridge be built. Now it may have existed before then, perhaps stretching all the way back to Roman occupation. This new medieval bridge was made from stone, but with that it brought its own challenges. Over time shopkeepers and residents began to construct buildings on top of the stone foundations and the bridge soon became very cramped, and in such close quarters, fires spread fast. A few years later in 1212, the first fire broke out on both ends, with many bridge dwellers trapped in the centre. Years later it was rebuilt, only to be destroyed again in two separate uprisings, one in 1381 and one in 1450. In both cases the bridge was rebuilt, but, as you may have guessed, it burnt down again in 1633. At this point, it was left partially unbuilt, just in time for the Great Fire of London in 1666. No surprise why the song London Bridge is Falling Down came about shortly after. The bridge was in a constant state of disrepair, owing largely to those houses built upon it. It is an amusing commentary on this seemingly cursed structure, no viking raids or bearing alive this time. Another famous nursery rhyme, but also famously dark. Many folklorists have connected it to the Great Plague, but how? Those last two lines, where children sneeze and fall down, are seen as a veiled reference to those dying from the plague, the plague in question being the Great Plague of London in 1666. The same year, if you recall, Bad Year. It was an outbreak of bubonic plague, an epidemic that killed an estimated 100,000 people. The death toll of the Great Plague is dwarfed by the Black Death a few centuries prior. It's believed that the Black Death outbreak of 1346-1353 killed an estimated 75 million to 200 million people. It was the most lethal pandemic of all time, and led to the development of the Back to Ring of Roses. According to legend, children began to dance and sing around the corpses of the infected dead, and mockingly sing this song. An incredibly disturbing and gruesome legend. Were it to be true? It isn't. It's only until the mid-20th century, until folklorists start coming up with this plague story about Ring of Roses. Before then, no such legend existed. The song only appears in English songbooks in 1881, so if the song did originate in the 17th century, or even in the middle ages as some speculate, one would expect to see it written down much earlier. Now if we wish to get scientific and go further, then the symptoms of the plague don't even match up with the nursery rhyme. The bacterium responsible for the bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, was transferred via rats, not sneezing as in the song. Instead, the main symptoms of the plague were these large uncomfortable warts called buboes, hence the name bubonic plague. The infected would also experience nausea, vomiting and fever, but sneezing is not one of them. So if it didn't originate with the plague, where is it from? Well, it's still a mystery. In fact, many believe that the song didn't even originate in England, but may have come from Europe or America. The thing is, with so many variations of this nursery rhyme, it becomes harder and harder to locate its true origin. Some of the oldest versions come from America, so the song may have originated there. This version from Texas, for example, in 1939, has no perceivable connection to death at all. Rain around all day, pockets full of toby, life is sweet but why, guess who she told me, tra-la-la-la-la, if the rain wasn't going, tra-la-la-la-la, if you love him, hug him, if you hate him, don't. I say all this, but even if the song isn't about the plague, it somehow still feels creepy. The same is true for all the nursery rhymes discussed in the video. It begs the question, why are nursery rhymes so inherently dark? One of the most frightening things is when something safe or childlike is revealed as evil and dark. The trope has a name, subverted innocence. We see it all the time in horror movies. The demonic orphan in The Omen, the possessed toy Chucky in Child's Play and the child-eating clown Pennywise from It. Nursery rhymes are another example of subverted innocence. They are warped into having frightening and disturbing origins. Some indeed do, but many don't. It seems that we humans are magnetically attracted to the macabre. By projecting our own dark fears about the past onto nursery rhymes, we open a Pandora's box and discover their disturbing potential. Hey, thanks for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed making it. Do let me know in the comments of other dark nursery rhymes worth exploring. Fairy tales too. I might wish to return to this topic in a series of future videos. And whilst you're here, why not subscribe? A like and a comment also go a really long way and help the channel to grow. I look forward to seeing you next time. Goodbye.