Other than the charming song Alouette which my mother enjoyed singing, and which is firmly anchored in my mind, no one sang nursery rhymes, or told those famous fairy tales to me when I was very young. I guess you’re either in a nursery rhyme family or you’re not. And I don’t recall seeing any nursery rhyme books around the homes of children I babysat for either. So, it could have been a location thing as to who got nursery rhymes sung to them at an early age and who didn’t. Did you? if your answer is “no”, remember, it’s never too late, or if you never quite got the hang of the words, or if you only know part of those rhymes and fairy tales, or some of them, here’s your chance. Actually, I think you’re going to enjoy this site because it’s absolutely delightful. And if there’s a night when you can’t seem to fall asleep, well, you can go to www.nurseryrhymes4u.com and return to a time when life was perhaps a little less stressful for you.
At dictionary.com I got an inkling of the beginnings of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and went from not having thought much about them to finding the subject vast and interesting as they have their own kind of history as Mother Goose, The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments or a Thousand and One Nights, and Brothers Grimm, etcetera, suggests. www.dictionary.com
Then I got to thinking about a wonderful gift shop I was in some time ago, and about the book I wish I’d purchased. It was a different kind of book having to do with the history of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. It was one of those occasions when, for a split second, you say, “Nah, what am I going to do with this book?” And I overruled that gut feeling and am now bookless about a subject that suddenly seems quite fascinating. Hmm! The book’s essence was that some of those nursery rhymes (not all) sung to children are downright scary or creepy, and if they weren’t sung in such a whimsical fashion, they could easily produce nightmares. Then it went on to suggest that the writers found their, shall we say, inspiration in the period in which they lived – the culture and hardships that went along with that time – influencing the writers of those “endearing” nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Perhaps I’ll spend more time filling in the gaps of what little knowledge I have of this interesting subject. It’s never too late. Right?