Humpty Dumpty & My Nephews

How many of you used to sing nursery rhymes? Now sing along.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again


Like most of us here, I learnt this and had long forgotten this rhyme until this incident. My brother asked me to baby sit both his kids, so that he & my co-sister can go for a movie. His kids are aged nine and two. Out of which nine year kid is super extreme intellectual kind, whose general questions are mostly about Human evolution, Astronomy and many other topics which I don’t have clue about? That day I managed to find a kids encyclopedia for him and shut him up .


Coming to the other kid, I didn’t have any clue about what a typical two year old does.They eat, sleep and play. Aren’t they too young to play Angry Birds or Candy crush? After lot of thinking I finally decided to read rhymes for him & started reading ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’.


I was interrupted by a question from my nine year old nephew, why did an egg sit in the wall? Isn’t it a weird place to sit?

I replied back saying maybe egg is used just used as a sample object. Then he posted the next question, ’Why will a horse put together an egg?

I didn’t have a clue about the same. In a typical tone used in office I said,’ I will get back to you on that’.


To avoid further questions, I decided to skip Humpty Dumpty and jumped into


Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.


‘ Why did they go up the hill to get water? Isn’t it found at the bottom of hill?’

I couldn’t help agreeing with my nephew. Luckily my two year old nephew slept off, putting a full stop to my rhymes recitation.


But the unanswered questions haunted me. What non-sense are we teaching our kids? Horse putting together an egg? Two dumb kids going up the hill to get water? What are we teaching our kids?


Soon I started questioning all the rhymes we ever sang. But when I dig- deep into it I was amazed by what I found.

Humpty Dumpty was not an egg but a colloquial name for the cannon protecting a fort during English Civil war. A shot from another cannon damaged the wall beneath it , causing Humpty Dumpty to fall in the ground. The royalists and other king’s men attempted to lift the cannon again, but since it was very heavy they couldn’t put Humpty together again.


Coming back to Jack and Jill, they were not dumb kids!!First of all they were not even kids.


King Charles I wanted to reform the taxes on liquid measures. He was blocked by Parliament, so subsequently ordered that the volume of a Jack (1/2 pint) be reduced, but the tax remained the same. This meant that he still received more tax, despite Parliament's veto. Hence "Jack fell down and broke his crown" . Still today many pint glasses in the UK still have a line marking the 1/2 pint level with a crown above it. " Jill came tumbling after", It’s not Jill but gill, which refers to 1/4th of pint.

Similarly lot of other famous rhymes too has hidden meanings. You will be amazed at what you can find about Baa Baa black sheep or Ringa-Ringa roses.

But here comes our next question, Why messages in a rhymes? Are 3 year, 5 year old in those times so knowledgeable to understand this? No, rhymes were used as a medium of expression.

Those were the time people were not always allowed to express themselves freely, for fear of persecution. Gossiping, criticizing the government or even talking about current events was often punishable by death. In order to communicate, clever rhymes were constructed and passed around to parody public figures and events.

But why should Kids learn about all this politics? Aren’t we spoiling them?

As long as it’s catchy, rhymes and animates kids and for that matter adults don’t realize the hidden meaning behind it. It’s when you look hard you realize the importance around it.

Nursery Rhymes are the first poems and songs children learn, generally before they go to school. They help broaden vocabulary, ability to count, and sharpens the memory. Of course it’s lot sense than non-sense.


After few days my brother again called me to baby sit his kids. I took a very harmless rhyme this time

‘Rain Rain go away

Come again another day’

Why would someone want rain to..?

Before I’m posted with another tough question…let me close the rhymes book

 

Thanks for your feedback satchi ma'am.
Yep humming rhymes is something I do too. They are very enjoyable.

 

Good to read your feedback! This generation is more of question everything right. Thanks to that question, I found something interesting.

We always play rhymes in the house for my kid. So naturally I hum that

 

My MIL/elderly women in the family used to sing tamil rhymes to my kid..some of them like
'mama adicharo..malligaipoo chendala'
'biscuit biscuit..jam biscuit..enna jam'
unfortunately I don't know the full rhymes. I couldn't find them in tamil rhymes book that comes these days in shop as well.