nursery rhymes

[miriam_e]

Amazing what you can find on the web.

I'd always thought that Jack Horner was a Mayor of London who had been on the take and that was what the nursery rhyme was about. But I was wrong.

Little Jack Horner
sat in the corner
eating his Christmas pie
He stuck in his thumb,
pulled out a plum
and said "What a good boy am I!"

I just looked up
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/little_jack_horner.htm
where it says:

"16th Century history origin to the Little Jack Horner story. Little Jack Horner was reputed to have been the Steward to the Bishop of Glastonbury. The steward, or Little Jack Horner, was sent to King Henry VIII with a Christmas gift of twelve title deeds to various English manorial estates. Jack (Little Jack Horner) stole the deed to the manor of Mells (it being the real 'plum' of the twelve manors). The remaining eleven manors were given to the crown but the manor of Mells became the property of the Horner family! The manor of Mells was situated in France and this is where Little Jack Horner moved to! The first publication date for the lyrics to the Little Jack Horner rhyme is 1725."

Odd though. I believe Mells is in Somerset in England. The last son of the Horner family line is buried at St Andrews church there, having died in World War 1, I think.

Another site, http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/History/NurseryRhymes.html#anchor128910
says something similar:

"Jack lived during the reign of England's Henry VIII. The plum he pulled out was a fine estate he received from the lands Henry VIII seized from the church."

That sounds like a more reasonable explanation.


But I wondered who the heck George was:

Georgie-porgie, pudding and pie
kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie-porgie ran away.

http://www.rhymes.org.uk/georgie_porgie.htm says of this:

"The origins of the lyrics to "Georgie Porgie" are English and refer to George (Georgie Porgie), the Duke of Buckingham, from the 17th century. His highly suspect morality was much in question! This, however, was overlooked due to his friendship with King Charles II (who also had a suspect reputation and was famous for his liaison with Nell Gwynne) The parliament finally lost patience and stopped the Kind [King] intervening on behalf of "Georgie Porgie"- at this point all of the jealous husbands vowed to wreak their revenge causing Georgie Porgie to 'run away'!"

Comments

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [Millennium Edition; London: Cassell, 2001] under Jack Horner:

A fanciful explanation of the old nursery rhyme 'Little Jack Horner' is that Jack was steward to the abbot of Glastonbury at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries (1536–9), and that by a subterfuge he gained the deeds of the Manor of Mells. It is said that these deeds, with others, were sent to Henry VIII concealed, for safety, in a pasty. 'Jack Horner' was thus the bearer who, on the way, lifted the crust and extracted this 'plum'.

Brewer's remains silent on the origins of Georgie Porgie, however, although it did clear up a long-standing debate about the titmouse.

Hello, btw; came across you on recommendations from usuakari and tooticky who say your art is fabulous (they're right!).

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

[blush] Thankyou. :)
And thanks for the note on Jack Horner.
Titmouse???

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheheh "library slut" what a delicious term.

I have to admit it just about describes me too. I've always had something of an addiction to books and libraries. In fact I carry my own personal library around with me. Moving to Queensland recently was like hell -- packing up about 2,000 books and magazines. But I'm hoping to fix all that. I am trying to replace as many of my books as possible with electronic versions. Already I have burned a DVD with about 3,000 books on it. (Yes that is more than I already have. I am accumulating electronic books more quickly than I ever did paper ones.)

The thing I love most about a library -- a building set aside for just books -- is standing in there and looking around me at all the books and feeling all these thousands of people, many of them long dead, just waiting to give me knowledge. What a totally awesome feeling that is!

By the way, have you seen this:
http://www.cheekybeef.co.uk/library.html
"...the librarians are often sexy..."

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Well, there had been some debate about how a bird could be named after a breast and/or a mouse, not being mammalian at all. It turns out, according to Brewer's, it's a misnomer—"tit" implies "small" and "mouse" comes from the Old English "mase", used of several small birds so "titmouse" just means small bird.

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Yes, moving is hell on books. Or books make moving hell, something like that. I didn't have anywhere near 2000 when I moved here from the US and it was bad enough. There are still books that are gone forever as a result...*sigh*

When did you move to Queensland? Your userinfo still says you're in Melbourne so it must have been recent...

I have to confess to a certain amount of love of the physical object and would be very reluctant to start converting my personal library into digital form, however portable that made it. But then, I hate reading long stories on screen; I'll print them out and read them on paper. At least I'm not that bad with email, I'm not one of those people who has to print out everything.

Libraries are pretty awe-inspiring. One of my favouritest things is to find an excuse to go into the stacks, back in the areas where the public isn't allowed, and just wheel apart the compactus shelves and drink in all the fabulous books. There are so many fascinating things, and so many crazy things that people have written books about...it's just endlessly cheering and exciting. Yeah, I really get off on that...*grin*

That vid was pretty cool. Although I'm beginning to realise that sexy librarians is almost as much of a stereotype as sexy nurses. Funny...

Have a site on Librarians in the Movies.

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

And Library Career Romances is pretty funny, too.