More Nursery Rhymes

More nursery rhymes unpacked!

Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey Goosey Gander wither shall I wander,
Upstairs, downstairs, and in my ladie's chamber.
There I met an old man who would not say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

The moral of the story - say your prayers or watch out for the AFLAC duck. He will hurt you - unless you have insurance with him. The insurance will save you since he doesn't want to pay any claims. You better pay your premiums. Failure to do so could result in one being thrown down the stairs.

That's one angry bird

Old King Cole

Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl, and he called for his fiddler's three.

Old King Cole was a druggie.  His three best friends were druggies.  Who knows?  Maybe the entire castle and kingdom was full of druggies.  That would certainly explain why Humpty Dumpty couldn't be put back together again.  All the king's men made a huge omelet to satisfy their munchies.

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker.
Turn them out, knaves all three.

Don't google 3 men in a tub - you've been warned.

This is one of the first references in history to "outing" homosexuals.  If you see three men sitting in a tub, rub a dub dubbing, you are supposed to "turn them out", which obviously means to bring them out of the closet.  These three just happen to be knaves, but we don't know if they are members of the knave union or just freelancers.  From our last nursery rhyme lesson, we are aware of the knave union and how they were treated by the Queen of Hearts.  We may never know the truth about these men - were they hiding because they were union members afraid of getting their heads chopped off or were they actually homosexual?  The history books are not conclusive, though I suspect the Queen was trying to shame them into coming out to defend their masculinity by spreading rumors about their sexual preferences.