Hickory Dickory Dock,
the mouse ran up the clock,
the clock struck one,
it’s time for fun!
Hickory Dickory Dock.
from Hickory Dickory Dock
written and illustrated by Keith Baker
Clarion Books, 2007
Keith Baker took some liberties with the original nursery rhyme to update it for the 21st century. He added more animals and playful rhymes to create a sing-along story I loved to use in story time.
I wondered if it is as innocuous as it seems. The history and references of lots of nursery rhymes have been lost through time.
Could the “farmer’s wife” in “Three Blind Mice” really have been Mary Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII? She was also known as “Bloody Mary.” She showed no mercy for her opponents and, unlike her father who broke away from the Catholic Church to start the Protestant Reformation, Mary was a strict Catholic. One theory suggests the mice were really Protestant loyalists who plotted against the murderous Queen.
She is probably also the subject of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” Those silver bells and cockleshells are both instruments of torture. She may be filling her garden with Protestant martyrs.
“Jack and Jill” might also refer to political roots. In the 1600’s, King Charles tried to impose tax reform on his subjects. Jack’s broken crown could be a symbol of the king’s powerlessness, and the defeat of Parliament shown by “Jill … tumbling after.”
A couple of theories describe Old London Bridge, a real structure that spanned the Thames. It might describe the bridge’s disrepair after the Great Fire of London (1666). Or the reference could be to the much earlier Viking’s destruction of the bridge in an attack by Olaf II of Norway in 1014.
The misogyny of “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater” who “kept his wife in a pumpkin shell” and the child abuse referred to in “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” vie with “Ring Around the Rosie” with its reference to the Great Plague of 1665, which killed almost one quarter of London’s population. All three are gruesome.
Even Hickory Dickory Dock has a controversial origin. The Cambric dialect spoken in the Early Middle Ages, 476 CE (Common Era) to 1000 CE, the numbers 8, 9, and 10 are written Hevera, Devera, and Dick. Could the name come from those numbers and refer to the Exeter Cathedral where the famous Exeter Astronomical Clock was housed in the 1400’s? The gilded clock, legend holds, has a round hole carved into it for the cathedral cat so it could do the holy work of keeping the clock free of mice.
When the words are sung, they fall into a catchy melody that helps young children learn numbers, rhyme, and the rhythm of language itself.
Maybe the rest of the rhymes are just that, too, ways of teaching language to our children?
Brain science has shown that hearing rhymes, music, and lots of rich language is crucial to language acquisition. In a paper written by The National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, studies confirm that “[n]eural and behavioral research show[s] … exposure to language in the first year of life influences the brain’s neural circuitry even before infants speak their first words.
Exposure to one’s native language is crucial to the development of fluency. While not completely mastered until about age 8, even a 10-month-old baby’s babbling can be identified as one language or another.
The author explains that language learning is most efficient and effective in social situations. That is, face-to-face rather than learning from a screen.
Science is showing us that language learning is complex and multi-modal. Learning takes place best when an infant’s and young child’s attention is focused on items and events in the natural world: the faces, actions, and voices of other people.” And especially during play.
So, why do these seemingly innocuous rhymes have such dark undertones? The best answer I can think of takes play, social interaction, and language learning into account.
Here’s what I mean. My older daughter stayed home from school one day when she was not feeling well. She was old enough to watch soap operas, but when I got home from work, she told me about a segment of Sesame Street she watched. It was Burt singing a song about the letter B, put to the tune of John Lennon’s “Let it Be.” It took till she became a teen, to get the grown-up humor. So much of Sesame Street was like that, incorporating a little something for the grown-ups. The best movies do that too. So do the best picture books.
An engaged adult will magically project her enthusiasm to the child, reinforcing language learning and social bonds.
Hickory Hickory Dock is fun to say and fun to sing.
London Bridge isn’t really falling down, but it is fun to fall down and get up again.
Jack Spratt and his wife worked together to accomplish a goal.
What about those three blind mice? or Wee Willie Winkie? Well, what child doesn’t love to run around?
The music, the rhymes, and action keep our children learning language while they play, while the adults can speculate about alternative theories that may or may not explain the origin of the rhymes.
What about Old Mother Hubbard and Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater? Well, child abuse and misogyny have no place in our modern society.
I’m reading Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal (William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers, 2017). It’s the story of Nikki, a young twenty-something who takes a job teaching English as a Second Language and the mostly older widows who have their own ideas about what they want to learn. It’s an intergenerational story, a story of family dynamics, husbands and wives, friendships, and a murder mystery that moves the plot to a surprising conclusion. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and take time play)
the mouse ran up the clock,
the clock struck one,
it’s time for fun!
Hickory Dickory Dock.
from Hickory Dickory Dock
written and illustrated by Keith Baker
Clarion Books, 2007
Keith Baker took some liberties with the original nursery rhyme to update it for the 21st century. He added more animals and playful rhymes to create a sing-along story I loved to use in story time.
I wondered if it is as innocuous as it seems. The history and references of lots of nursery rhymes have been lost through time.
Could the “farmer’s wife” in “Three Blind Mice” really have been Mary Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII? She was also known as “Bloody Mary.” She showed no mercy for her opponents and, unlike her father who broke away from the Catholic Church to start the Protestant Reformation, Mary was a strict Catholic. One theory suggests the mice were really Protestant loyalists who plotted against the murderous Queen.
She is probably also the subject of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” Those silver bells and cockleshells are both instruments of torture. She may be filling her garden with Protestant martyrs.
“Jack and Jill” might also refer to political roots. In the 1600’s, King Charles tried to impose tax reform on his subjects. Jack’s broken crown could be a symbol of the king’s powerlessness, and the defeat of Parliament shown by “Jill … tumbling after.”
A couple of theories describe Old London Bridge, a real structure that spanned the Thames. It might describe the bridge’s disrepair after the Great Fire of London (1666). Or the reference could be to the much earlier Viking’s destruction of the bridge in an attack by Olaf II of Norway in 1014.
The misogyny of “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater” who “kept his wife in a pumpkin shell” and the child abuse referred to in “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” vie with “Ring Around the Rosie” with its reference to the Great Plague of 1665, which killed almost one quarter of London’s population. All three are gruesome.
Even Hickory Dickory Dock has a controversial origin. The Cambric dialect spoken in the Early Middle Ages, 476 CE (Common Era) to 1000 CE, the numbers 8, 9, and 10 are written Hevera, Devera, and Dick. Could the name come from those numbers and refer to the Exeter Cathedral where the famous Exeter Astronomical Clock was housed in the 1400’s? The gilded clock, legend holds, has a round hole carved into it for the cathedral cat so it could do the holy work of keeping the clock free of mice.
When the words are sung, they fall into a catchy melody that helps young children learn numbers, rhyme, and the rhythm of language itself.
Maybe the rest of the rhymes are just that, too, ways of teaching language to our children?
Brain science has shown that hearing rhymes, music, and lots of rich language is crucial to language acquisition. In a paper written by The National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, studies confirm that “[n]eural and behavioral research show[s] … exposure to language in the first year of life influences the brain’s neural circuitry even before infants speak their first words.
Exposure to one’s native language is crucial to the development of fluency. While not completely mastered until about age 8, even a 10-month-old baby’s babbling can be identified as one language or another.
The author explains that language learning is most efficient and effective in social situations. That is, face-to-face rather than learning from a screen.
Science is showing us that language learning is complex and multi-modal. Learning takes place best when an infant’s and young child’s attention is focused on items and events in the natural world: the faces, actions, and voices of other people.” And especially during play.
So, why do these seemingly innocuous rhymes have such dark undertones? The best answer I can think of takes play, social interaction, and language learning into account.
Here’s what I mean. My older daughter stayed home from school one day when she was not feeling well. She was old enough to watch soap operas, but when I got home from work, she told me about a segment of Sesame Street she watched. It was Burt singing a song about the letter B, put to the tune of John Lennon’s “Let it Be.” It took till she became a teen, to get the grown-up humor. So much of Sesame Street was like that, incorporating a little something for the grown-ups. The best movies do that too. So do the best picture books.
An engaged adult will magically project her enthusiasm to the child, reinforcing language learning and social bonds.
Hickory Hickory Dock is fun to say and fun to sing.
London Bridge isn’t really falling down, but it is fun to fall down and get up again.
Jack Spratt and his wife worked together to accomplish a goal.
What about those three blind mice? or Wee Willie Winkie? Well, what child doesn’t love to run around?
The music, the rhymes, and action keep our children learning language while they play, while the adults can speculate about alternative theories that may or may not explain the origin of the rhymes.
What about Old Mother Hubbard and Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater? Well, child abuse and misogyny have no place in our modern society.
I’m reading Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal (William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers, 2017). It’s the story of Nikki, a young twenty-something who takes a job teaching English as a Second Language and the mostly older widows who have their own ideas about what they want to learn. It’s an intergenerational story, a story of family dynamics, husbands and wives, friendships, and a murder mystery that moves the plot to a surprising conclusion. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and take time play)
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