Nursery Rhymes

(from my Top 10 calendar [not David Letterman...]):

The 10: Morbid Origins of Nursery Rhymes

(the only one I knew from this list is "Ring Around the Rosie" -- I love fun facts. Don't you?)

1. Humpty Dumpty: Cannon used in the Siege of Colchester during the English Civil War. Humpty had a great fall after enemy fire and couldn't be put back together.

2. Jack and Jill: King Louis XVI, who was beheaded, followed by Marie Antoinette (who came tumbling after).

3. Ring Around The Rosie: The Black Death, killing 25 million in the fourteenth century. The ring is a rash; posies are petals to ward off the plague. Falling down? Obvious.

4. Little Jack Horner: Sixteenth-century steward who betrayed the Bishop of Glastonbury.

5. Baa Baa Black Sheep: A thirteenth-century wool tax -- one-third to local lord/master; one-third to the church/dame; and one-third to the farmer, or "little boy", who lived down the lane.

6. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary: "Bloody Mary," who tortured and beheaded non-Catholics via the Pretty Maids or guillotines!

7. Jack Sprat: King Charles I; when parliament "left him lean" by not financing his war on Spain, the Queen imposed a war tax.

8. Georgie Porgie: The hated courtier George Villiers (1592-1628), lover to both King James I and the Queen of France.

9. Jack Be Nimble: Sixteenth-century English pirate, Black Jack, notorious for eluding authorities.

10. Mary Had a Little Lamb: Mary had a little lamb! Period. Note: Bostonian Sarah Hale's words were the first recorded by Thomas Edison on his phonograph.