Nursery Rhymes

[Rifka]

Did anyone else notice that the website Mico linked to in question #64553 gave the Bubonic plague explanation for Ring around the Rosies? No offense, Mico, but I'm inclined to doubt the history behind the other nursery rhymes on that page if they couldn't even get the facts right on Ring around the Rosies.

[mic0]

Oh dang! I didn't notice. The site seemed so useful, but now... I wonder...

I did notice that the explanations for some of the rhymes were not actually histories but were just talking about the lyrics. But then other ones had really good explanations. *shrug*

[Rifka]

I agree-- it did look like an interesting site until I noticed that. Granted, they do mention that there are skeptics about the Black Plague theory, but they brush them off. Also, I was suspicious immediately when there were no sources for any of their "historical" background on the nursery rhymes. I guess that's the historian in me coming out. It would be interesting to find a book or site that has documented background on popular nursery rhymes. Someone should use that idea for a thesis . . .

[Rifka]

Here's a brief discussion of the history of nursery rhymes for anyone who's interested. It's definitely all comprehensive, but it has more sourcing than anything else I looked up so far:

http://www.english.uwaterloo.ca/courses ... harris.htm

And here's some other articles about nursery rhymes and their history:
-http://www.snopes.com/lost/sixpence.asp.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

[Rifka]

Okay-- I've decided I'm officially a nerd (well, actually I've known that for a long time!) My curiosity has been piqued by this subject enough that I'm going to do some real research on it. I'll report back on my findings on this thread.

[Portia]

The most convincing anti-plague theory evidence I've found is that most versions date to well after the high middle ages, the time when the plague was culturally at the forefront. No citations; sorry.