This week we are going back to our childhoods and remembering Nursery Rhymes. This is because World Nursery Rhyme Week begins today, the 18th of November.
They may be just simple songs, and often repetitive, but they seem to have been proven to improve literacy skills in most children. And they also often have a fascinating and sometimes gruesome tale behind them that slightly older children would appreciate.
So our clue cards were :
Clue one: Saturday 16th of November 2024
This clue referred to the player`s surname - Toms - for two Toms appear in the popular rhyme "Tom Tom The Piper`s Son", which has been sung since the 1790s.
On the surface this one sounds scary, "Tom Tom the piper's son, stole a pig and away he run, the pig was eat and Tom was beat, and Tom went roaring down the street." However the pig was not a real live animal, as is shown in modern versions, it was a cake, which was sold by street tradesmen, at about the time the rhyme was first sung. It seems to have been shaped like a pig, with currants for eyes. So this seems to have been a morality tale warning small children not to steal.
Clue two : Sunday 17th of November 2024
Godfrey Phillips [tobacco : UK - London] "Cricketers" - brown back, large (19??) 12/23 - .P521-314.B : RB.113/56 : P50-54.B : Ph/58.2.B [RB.13/58.2.B]
This clue gave us MacDonald, of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", but his initials "E.A." do also have a nod to "E-I-E-I-O" which is frequently repeated as part of the tune.
This verse is even earlier than our last one, and started as a serious poem, written by Thomas d`Urfey, in 1706, and at first it was part of an opera "The Kingdom of the Birds or Wonders of the Sun". However it soon gained a life outside of that, being a happy tune with an opportunity to make funny noises in company. And it seems that today this is the most popular nursery rhyme worldwide, with hundreds of different translations which, wonderfully, use the local animals, rather than our home grown ones.
and lastly, came
Clue three : Monday 18th of November 2024
Suchard [trade : chocolate : O/S - Switzerland] "Oiseaux" / "Birds" (19??) Un/??
This card gave us "blackbirds", but only two, not the four and twenty which were baked in a pie.
It is also thought that this rhyme dates to the eighteenth century, first being printed in 1744, though several references to the actual title, "Sing a Song of Sixpence" appear in literature from centuries earlier, and the sixpence coin was first minted in the sixteenth century. Curiously the 1744 version has "naughty boys" baked in the pie and not blackbirds, they did not replace the boys until almost the end of the eighteenth century.
On which note, if anyone else would like to send us any information from their collection which relates in any way to our theme of the week, or themes we have covered in the past, please do.The e-mail is webmaster@card-world.co.uk - and this is the same for any corrections, or for general cartophilic correspondence and chat.