Week 13 Reading: English Nursery Rhymes, Part B

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This is a continuation of my English Nursery Rhyme unit notes. I decided to read these poems because I had a large book with many of the same works when I was younger, and I thought that it would be nice to revisit some of them and to read ones that I had never heard of before. This second section of the unit is separated into categories such as Love and Marriage, Jingles, Natural History, Relics, etc. I like this format because the book that I had did not separate them, so it is nice to compare and contrast poems within the same category in this way.

In the Jingles section, I came across Hey Diddle Diddle, but the version that I found in this unit was slightly different than the one that I am used to. I clearly remember it being, “And the dish ran away with the spoon,” but this version has it as, “And the dish ran after the spoon,” accompanied by a menacing-looking dish and a frightened spoon. Here, I like my version more because I always thought that the dish and spoon were in love, but this unit’s version makes it look like the dish is some sort of aggressive creep.

Also in the Jingle section, I reread Rub-a-dub-dub. This was interesting because I could never remember past the first two lines of the poem, and reading towards the end made me regard the poem differently. At the end, the three men are called “knaves” who should be turned out. According to Google, a knave is “a dishonest or unscrupulous man,” so I assume that this children’s nursery rhyme is actually trying to sway children against homosexuality.

Lastly, I liked coming across Jack Sprat in this unit. This poem was in the book that I had as a child, but the picture is different, so it was nice to get a different visual. The poem is kind of funny:

JACK SPRAT could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean:
They lick'd the platter clean
And so, betwixt them both, you see,
They lick'd the platter clean.

I will probably try writing some nursery rhymes in my own storytelling this week.

If you would like to read these tales, click here: link.

Lang, Andrew. The Nursery Rhyme Book. 1897.