Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes Read online

On a cold and frosty morning.

  This is the way we go to church,

  Go to church, go to church;

  This is the way we go to church,

  On a cold and frosty morning.

  Here we go round the mulberry bush,

  The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush;

  Here we go round the mulberry bush,

  On a cold and frosty morning.

  The mulberry bush has had its place in legend for hundreds of years, most famously in the tragic story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a version of which is told by the Latin author Gaius Julius Hyginus (c. 64 bc-ad 17), and, centuries later, camped up in comic fashion by Bottom and companions in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The tale is set in ancient Babylon, where two children, Pyramus and Thisbe, grew up as next-door neighbours. As the years passed and they became young adults, the pair fell in love, but their parents forbade them to see each other. Instead, the lovers communicated secretly through a hole in the wall that separated their two houses. One night they decided to run away together and marry in secret.

  Pyramus described to Thisbe a location marked by a mulberry bush. She arrived at the rendezvous first but, while she was waiting for Pyramus, she was scared by a passing lion, its jaws still bloodied from a recent kill. In panic, Thisbe dropped her cloak and ran to hide in a nearby cave. When Pyramus arrived, he found his lover’s bloodstained cloak on the floor and fresh lion tracks all round. He had always been hot-headed and, overcome with grief that his sweetheart appeared to have been eaten by a lion, he unsheathed his sword and stabbed himself in the heart. Meanwhile Thisbe had been waiting to make sure the lion really had gone, and as soon as she thought it was safe, she returned to the mulberry bush, only to discover what her lover, the fool, had done. Every bit as impulsive as her beloved, she tugged the sword out of Pyramus’s heart and plunged it into her own, spraying blood – both hers and his – all over the white mulberries. In tribute to the lovers, the mulberries remained red, instead of white, and have stayed this colour ever since. The moral of this story clearly is: don’t kill yourself for love. (Not that lovers ever heed such advice, as the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet – in another of Shakespeare’s plays, with a very similar ending to this ancient tale – make quite plain.)

  ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’ is one of the many ‘repetitive’ nursery rhymes that can easily be adapted and added to, and probably has been many times over the years, to suit any occasion. There are similar versions in Holland and Scandinavia, although a juniper bush is understandably substituted for a mulberry bush in those rather colder countries. This song could be extended to last all day if necessary. Essentially, it’s a worker’s song devised to pass away the time and improve morale. For example, working miners might sing ‘This is the way we dig for coal, dig for coal, etc’ and a version for soldiers might go ‘This is the way we march to war’. Sailors might sing ‘This is the way we mend our sails, mend our sails’ while school children might chant ‘This is the way we brush our teeth’, and so on.

  For the origins of this nursery rhyme, we need to travel to the unlikely setting of HMP Wakefield and the exercise yard. According to R. S. Duncan, a former governor of Wakefield and author of a fascinating history of the prisons that have existed on the same site for over five hundred years, the mulberry tree in the exercise yard provides the root (or roots) of this long-standing rhyme. Mulberry trees have been associated with prisons since the early nineteenth century, when many prison governors entered the profitable British silk industry, mulberry leaves being the preferred food of silkworms.

  Duncan insists that, back in the days when Wakefield was a House of Correction, female prisoners used to walk their children around the mulberry tree planted in the courtyard and devised the rhyme to help pass the time and keep the children occupied. According to the Wakefield tourist office, a mulberry tree thrives to this day within the prison grounds.

  With the possibility of the rhyme being written in prison, its meaning changes to something much darker. After all, it’s not summer but a cold and frosty morning. The activities listed in the song are no longer simple chores but the catalogue of wearisome tasks performed by a female prisoner in a House of Correction: washing, ironing and mending clothes, scrubbing the floor, sweeping and baking bread, all topped off with a compulsory visit to church. The repetition within the verse (This is the way we scrub the floor, / Scrub the floor, scrub the floor) emphasizes the dreary endlessness of the tasks – ones that have to be done a certain way. More than just a worker’s song, ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’ would seem to be the nursery-rhyme equivalent of a song chanted by a chain gang (see Swing Low, Sweet Chariot).

  Hey Diddle Diddle

  HEY diddle diddle,

  The cat and the fiddle,

  The cow jumped over the moon;

  The little dog laughed to see such fun,

  And the dish ran away with the spoon.

  Often described as one of the best-known nonsense poems of all time, there have been some interesting and diverse attempts to explain what inspired it. Here are a few of my favourites.

  The first example is a story that explains Richard III’s path to the English throne. On 9 April 1483, Richard’s brother King Edward IV died, leaving the throne to his thirteen-year-old son, Edward V. Richard then governed as regent for the young king and placed Edward and his younger brother in the Tower of London, supposedly for their own safety. However, within weeks both boys had been declared illegitimate by an Act of Parliament, known as ‘Titulus Regius’ (or ‘Royal Title’ in Latin), after which the ‘Princes in the Tower’ mysteriously disappeared. Richard was then declared king of England on 6 July 1483. Many people were deeply sceptical about what had gone on, but it was far too dangerous to openly question the new king’s actions. It was time to invent a new nursery rhyme and one that started with a nonsensical opening line (Hey diddle diddle) to throw the suspicious off the scent.

  The cat and the fiddle

  Sir William Catesby (1450-85) was a leading member of the powerful group of men who supported Richard’s claim to the throne. After Richard had been declared king, he quickly rose to power, first as Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Speaker of the House during the Parliament of 1484. Catesby was one of the few who had Richard III’s full support and confidence, and was known publicly as the ‘Catte’.

  The cow jumped over the moon

  Richard Neville (1428-71) was the 16th Earl of Warwick and 6th Earl of Salisbury. A powerful and influential person in royal circles, he became known as the ‘Kingmaker’.

  He was a leading figure during the Wars of the Roses (1455-87) and responsible for deposing the Lancastrian monarch, Henry VI (see Hector Protector), replacing him with the Yorkist king Edward IV, Richard III’s elder brother. Warwick was also Richard’s cousin, the future king having spent much of his formative years in his care at Warwick Castle, eventually marrying Anne Neville, the Earl of Warwick’s youngest daughter. The Warwick family emblem at the time was said to have been a cow.

  Neville’s cousin was Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland (1392-1455), but when the two families found themselves on opposing sides during the Wars of the Roses, a long-running and bitter feud developed. The Nevilles eventually prevailed, with the accession of kings Edward and Richard. The Percy family emblem was said to be a moon. Hence: The cow jumped over the moon.

  The little dog laughed to see such fun

  Francis Lovell (Viscount Lovell, 1454-87) was the king’s childhood friend. The pair fought together to suppress the Buckingham Rebellion in 1483 and Lovell’s influence was well known throughout England. His family emblem was a dog. (Another popular rhyme of the day shows how customary it was to refer to the powerful by their symbols: ‘The Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our Dog rule all England under a hog’.) Obviously, the ‘dog’ was more than satisfied to hear of his friend’s rise to power as he was immediately knighted and given a castle (The little dog laughed to see such fun).


  And the dish ran away with the spoon

  This is where the story starts sounding rather thin. The argument goes that Richard himself was the dish while the spoon was either the anointing spoon used during the coronation or the royal sceptre that he had run away with –although it is hard to find a reference in this vein to Richard III. Perhaps we should stick with Shakespeare, who draws our attention to the dish of revenge (best served cold) in his play about these events, Richard III. This interpretation of the rhyme makes a good tale, although, sadly, there is little evidence that the Neville or Percy family emblems ever included either a cow or the moon.

  Theory two travels two hundred years on to Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), who was well known for giving members of her court nicknames. Apparently the Virgin Queen herself is the cat and other characters among her entourage were known as the moon, the cow and the lap-dog. The spoon was thought to be the royal food taster and the dish was the queen’s serving girl. When the two of them eloped (the dish ran away with the spoon), the jealous queen was enraged and had them hunted down and thrown into the Tower of London.

  Theory three, and my favourite, is the idea that the entire riddle is in fact a lesson in stargazing. There are certain nights of the year, usually in April, where particular constellations all appear close to the moon at the same time. The line-up is the Cat (Leo), the Cow (Taurus), the Little Dog (Canis Minor), the Dish (Crater, a dish-shaped constellation), the Spoon (Ursa Major – Big Dipper in the US, or the Plough in Britain), the Fiddle (Lyra) and the moon (that will be the moon, then). The theory goes that the rhyme was developed as a way to remind children of the planting season in early spring. In other words, when all of the constellations line up close to the moon in the night sky, then it is time for farmers and smallholders to sow their seeds.

  Hickory, Dickory, Dock

  HICKORY, dickory, dock,

  The mouse ran up the clock.

  The clock struck one,

  The mouse ran down,

  Hickory, dickory, dock.

  This rhyme, first published in 1743, is believed by some to have been inspired by the last man ever to rule England as a republic.

  After the execution of Charles I in 1649, England became a commonwealth for eleven years (1649-60), during which time a protectorate was established (1653-9), with Oliver Cromwell holding the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Just prior to his death, on 3 September 1658, the arch-republican head of state surprised many by nominating his eldest surviving son, Richard, to succeed him.

  Richard Cromwell was born on 4 October 1626 and is believed to have served as a captain in Sir Thomas Fairfax’s

  New Model Army during the late 1640s, although with apparently little distinction as nothing is known of his service. In 1649, he married Dorothy, the daughter of Richard Maijor, and settled on the family estate at Hursley. During the 1650s, Richard Cromwell’s lack of ambition appeared to be troubling his father to the point where, in 1653, he was not included in the elder Cromwell’s ‘Bare-bones Parliament’, although his younger brother Henry was. When Oliver became Lord Protector in 1653, Richard was offered no public role and instead his father wrote to Richard Maijor: ‘I would have him mind and understand business, read history and study cosmography and mathematics – these things are good, with subordination to the things of God. Better than idleness or mere outward worldly contents. There are things fit for public service, for which a man is born.’

  But, in accordance with the constitution of the Protectorate, Oliver Cromwell was required to name, or at least nominate, a successor, and in 1657 began to include Richard in affairs of state. In June of that year, he was at his father’s side during his second installation as Lord Protector, and the following month was given the role of Lord Chancellor at Oxford University. By December, the prodigal son had even become a member of the Council of State. But he wasn’t ready to succeed his father after Oliver Cromwell’s death the following year.

  Unlike his father, Richard had no real military or political experience and therefore cut little ice with either the army or Parliament. To make matters worse, he had inherited a regime that was in debt to the tune of £2 million – billions in today’s terms – and measures had to be taken. In April 1659, when Parliament threatened cuts to reduce army funding, the generals presented a petition to Richard Cromwell which he passed on to Parliament. Ignoring the petition, Parliament instead passed two resolutions banning any meetings of army officers without the express permission of the Lord Protector and Parliament, and demanding that officers swear an oath that they would never disrupt or prevent the business of Parliament by force. The army responded by demanding the dissolution of Parliament. Richard refused and hostile troops began to gather at St James’s in London. Having given in to the troops’ demands, his next mistake was to refuse an offer of heavily armed support from the French ambassador. By now, he was being ridiculed and mocked by enemies and supporters alike, his nicknames ranging from Queen Dick to Tumbledown Dick and Hickory Dick. Before the year was out, Richard had effectively been forced out of office and the monarchy restored in the shape of King Charles II.

  And this leads neatly to the suggestion that ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’ is directly connected with the ineffectual Richard Cromwell (Hickory Dick) and his one-year reign (The clock struck one, / The mouse ran down). The second (rarely used) verse would also appear to be about Richard’s rapid rise from nowhere (The pig flew up in the air) and back down again, ousted from the throne by Charles II (The man in brown / Soon brought him down):

  Dickory, dickory, dare,

  The pig flew up in the air.

  The man in brown

  Soon brought him down,

  Dickory, dickory, dare.

  Higgledy, Piggledy, My Black Hen

  HIGGLEDY, piggledy, my black hen,

  She lays eggs for gentlemen,

  Sometimes nine and sometimes ten;

  Gentlemen come every day

  To see what my black hen has laid.

  The clue as to how to read this rhyme is in the opening words. Indicating a state of confusion and disorder, the expression higgledy, piggledy was first recorded at the end of the fifteenth century. There are various other versions of the phrase, such as ‘higly pigly’, but the key thing is that they all appear to involve pigs, or the confused herding together of these animals. Pigs have long been conventionally considered the dirtiest animals in the farmyard, living in a state of squalor – if you’re ever tempted to refer to a teenager’s bedroom as a pigsty, you’re using the same idea. But it’s no farmyard that’s being described in this rhyme; it’s a house of ill-repute, a brothel. The narrator is a pimp or procurer, my black hen is a prostitute and the gentlemen are her clients.

  A similar rhyme, dating from the eighteenth century, makes a much clearer allusion to the subject:

  Little Blue Betty lived in a den,

  She sold good ale to gentlemen;

  Gentlemen came every day

  And little Blue Betty hopped away;

  She hopped upstairs to make her bed

  And tumbled down and broke her head.

  Hot Cross Buns

  HOT cross buns, hot cross buns!

  One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns!

  If you have no daughters, give them to your sons.

  One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns!

  Two festive foods both connected with Easter – pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and hot cross buns on Good Friday –have survived into the present even though most traditional aspects of their special days have long ceased to have any widespread resonance. There was once, however, a superstition that good luck would accompany those who ate them and bad luck those who did not. Hence this song –traditionally sung by hawkers and street traders, eager, in any case, to sell their wares – appears to remind potential purchasers that they should make sure everyone they knew ate the buns (If you have no daughters, give them to your sons). A further co
uple of lines, sometimes added, offer further encouragement:

  But if you haven’t any of these pretty little elves

  You cannot do better than eat them yourselves.

  In more recent times, the poor old hot cross bun has come under pressure from a variety of directions. In 2003, for instance, four local councils decided to ban them for fear of offending non-Christians. The bun has also attracted speculation about its ancient pagan origins despite its bearing the overtly Christian symbol of a cross and being sold on the day of the Crucifixion, and this has, paradoxically, prompted some devout Christians to refuse to eat them. The wildest piece of evidence cited to support this is based on the similarity of the word ‘bun’ to the ancient Greek word boun which, according to the eighteenth-century antiquary Jacob Bryant, was a cake with two horns, offered to the gods at Arkite temples every seventh day.

  More credible is the association of the buns with an ancient British festival. Easter is believed to derive from the Anglo-Saxon festival of Eostre – a pagan goddess, possibly of the dawn, her name deriving from the same word that gives us ‘east’ – celebrated at the spring equinox. According to this interpretation, the cross on the bun symbolizes the four quarters of the moon. Whether or not this particular marking has pre-Christian origins, it is known that cakes were often baked in honour of the gods.

  The House That Jack Built

  THIS is the house that Jack built.

  This is the malt

  That lay in the house that Jack built.

  This is the rat that ate the malt

  That lay in the house that Jack built.