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Author
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Comment
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makinfaces
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 6:20:36 am)
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Rhyme/folklore?...
I'm looking for some information on these two:
*a tisket a tasket...
*Ring around the rosie...
Where do these originate from?And from what?...
I've heard via the plague.
Also,this maybe asking alot,but could you possible include some original/early verse'
Thanks
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Meurglys
Registered User
(10/18/02 6:44:52 am)
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Re: Rhyme/folklore?...
You could try www.snopes.com
and type 'plague' into their search engine. The first choice that
comes up is about the 'Ring a Rosie' rhyme. Lots of detail and alternate
versions.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 7:07:17 am)
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Ella Fitzgerald
Attributes her version of A Tisket, A Tasket to an 1879 nursery rhyme.
Hope that helps.
Jess
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 7:53:02 am)
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John Gilpin? Source
"The Diverting History of John Gilpin" - try a search or go to Caldecott's society web pages. I believe it may help you.
-Jess
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JaNell
Registered User
(10/18/02 11:15:18 am)
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Source
I'd always read that "A tisket, a tasket" was from the French revolution, re: the nobility at the guillotine:
"A tisket, a tasket,
A red-and-yellow basket,
A severed head cannot reply
To questions that you ask it."
And "Ring around the rosie" describes the symptoms of the plague:
"Ring around the rosy" - skin eruptions
"Pocket full of posies" - herbs and wards against disease
"Achoo! Achoo!" (or "Ashes, ashes") - then you sneeze and spread the disease (or referring to burning the bodies, maybe)
"We all fall down" - well, an awful lot did.
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 12:00:53 pm)
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Disagreement
I think we already discussed this before. The plague references are questioned by a LOT of scholars these days.
See the Opies books and THE ANNOTATED MOTHER GOOSE.
Jane
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JaNell
Registered User
(10/18/02 1:03:14 pm)
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Questions
Jane - do you think that perhaps, if the "plague" and "revolution" versions are not the originals, that they are updates/parodies of the originals? The versions we have today might be yet another metamorphisis...
But isn't the question what makes it all so interesting?
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 2:19:54 pm)
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Nonsense
Some scholars seemed to think that the poems (both of them) are "nonsense" poems without the historical references. I always thought "Ring around the Rosie" was a plague reference too. But a couple of years ago I ran into some research being done on various "Mother Goose" tales. It seemed to debunk that theory. Humpty Dumpty, however, does seem to be a reference to a large cannon. No one seems to know why it is always pictured as an egg.
Jess
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makinfaces
Unregistered User
(10/18/02 9:09:29 pm)
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tisket a tasket
Thanks for all the replies... However,the person whom first relayed this explanation or answer...
"a tisket a tasket a green and yellow basket"refered to the caskets that were being made for disposal/ burning. And since wood was such a commodity... wicker was used.And the "green & yellow"had to do w/ freshly cut cane/wicker.
I haven't had a chance to look further,but does anyone know the following verse'.
Thanks
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Colleen
Unregistered User
(10/23/02 7:35:51 am)
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Humpty Dumpty
Jess, was Lewis Carroll the first person to refer to Humpty Dumpty as an egg or does it go back farther than that? The nursery rhyme itself goes back farther than Lewis Carroll, doesn't it? (You've got me curious!)
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/23/02 8:41:20 am)
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Humpty-Dumpty
Colleen:
If you look at this website, there are two plausible histories of the nursery rhyme:
www.sca.org.au/bacchus_wo...hymes.html
It also contains a bibliography. I have heard the cannon one most often.
Another source, I believe it is the Oxford Encyclopedia of Nursery Rhymes, says that Humpty is portrayed as an egg because of an 1810 interpretation of the rhyme as a riddle, whose answer is "an egg".
My annotated version of "Through the Looking Glass" has no specific reference to Humpty being portrayed as an egg. If you read the text of the book (Chapter VI), however, you will see that Lewis Carroll assumes his reader would recognize an egg Humpty. Thus, it makes sense then that by the time he wrote it, Humpty was already portrayed as an egg in popular culture.
Hope this helps.
Jess
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/23/02 10:36:49 am)
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oops forgot
That source saying that Humpty is an egg to answer for the riddle also indicates that the rhyme has been around a lot longer than 1810. It is unclear whether Humpty was portrayed as an egg prior to the riddle interpretation.
Jess
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Colleen
Unregistered User
(10/25/02 7:21:54 am)
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Thanks!
Thanks, Jess, for posting that link. It's an interesting website; it was fun to read nursery rhymes I'd forgotten as well as a couple I'd never heard, along with all the ones I remembered. I've bookmarked it for future reference.
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