Baa Baa Black sheep was about the taxes imposed on farmers by King Edward the 1st in 1275. The new tax levied one third of a sack of wool to the king and one third to the church and the last to the farmer referred to as the little boy who lives down the lane. Hence Baa Baa Black sheep was a very negative theme. In the 20Th century, the word “black” and “master” was regarded as racial by various bodies and the poem was even banned by some schools. Others innovated by changing the word “black’ for less offensive words. Some like even suggested as “Baa Baa Rainbow sheep” as an alternative.
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Humpty Dumpty wasn’t just the four line rhyme as you know it. First here is the real version In sixteen hundred and forty-eight? When England suffered pains of state? The Roundheads laid siege to Colchester town? Where the King’s men still fought for the crown.?? There one-eyed Thompson stood on the wall? A gunner with the deadliest aim of all? From St Mary’s tower the cannon he fired? Humpty Dumpty was his name.?? Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall? Humpty Dumpty had a great fall? All the King’s horses and all the King’s men? Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!??
Humpty Dumpty was a CANNON!! The weapon was owned by the supporters of King Charles I to gain control over the city of Colchester during the English Civil war. Once they secured Colchester, the cannon was placed upon a church tower in until it was destroyed by a barrage of enemy cannon balls. The cannon fell into the marshland below and as the rhyme says, “All the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men couldn’t put humpty together again”.
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Among the secret origins behind nursery rhymes, Goosey Goosey Gander hid the sinister theme of religious persecution at a time when catholic priests in England were forbidden to say their Latin based prayers in public or even in the secrecy of their homes. The original version narrates “There I met an old man, who wouldn’t say his prayers; I caught him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs”
The weirdest fact of such poems is that despite of harboring acts of violence, they are still considered innocent rhymes taught to children. How many of us remember being taught such rhymes at school not really knowing what we were saying.
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