“I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.” |

“I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.”

Autumn has returned. The air is chilly. It is 54˚, a seasonal temperature. Last night the wind blew and howled. This morning more branches are bare, their leaves covering the ground and deck. The house was cold when I woke up so I had to turn the heat back on. Gracie and I are going to the dump and Agway then we’ll watch the Patriots.

It is a quiet day both inside and out. Gracie is sleeping and breathing deeply. The keys make noise when I type. Those are the only sounds I can hear. The quiet is a Sunday thing. That’s the way it has always been. I know the stores are all opened, but my neighborhood has no shouts from kids playing in the street and no dogs barking one after the other. Noises like leaf blowers, instead of rakes, and lawn mowers are Saturday things. They were when I was young and still are today. The rest of the days of the week haven’t as much personality as the weekend.

When I was young, I loved nursery rhymes. The way the words fit together and the rhythm appealed to my ears. I always said them sing-songy. We used to tease my brother by calling him Georgie Porgie then we’d run before he could catch us. I used to wonder about the ten o’clock scholar, “A diller, a dollar, A ten o’clock scholar, What makes you come so soon? You used
to come at ten o’clock, And now you come at noon.” How could he be earlier if he came later? I looked this up one time and found out the word ‘diller’ is a Yorkshire term for a boy who is dim-witted and stupid. The ten and twelve o’clock lines are the other students making fun of him. It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

I don’t know if I have a favorite nursery rhyme as I liked so many of them. I always felt bad for Old Mother Hubbard’s dog, Humpty Dumpty and poor Jack of Jack and Jill fame. I used to wish on the first star, Star Light Star bright, The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight. Actually I often still do. I don’t think many wishes ever came true , but I thought I’d keep giving it a try in case. I liked the days of the week one because I was a Sunday child: But the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. Maybe my favorite one is Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Please to put a penny in the old man’s hat; If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do, If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you!

I accepted this rhyme without too many questions. It was the Christmas is coming which I loved the very thought of. Bob Cratchit and his family ate goose so that was okay with me. I got the penny part and my mother told me a ha’penny was a half penny. I wondered if you had to cut the penny in half. It took a while before I got the answer to that one.

Explore posts in the same categories: Musings

This entry was posted on November 8, 2015 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: 54˚, autumn, bare branches, cold house, days of the week, Georgie Porgie, heat, Jack and Jill, nursery rhymes, quiet Sunday, Saturday lawn work, ten o'clock scholar

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

12 Comments on ““I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.””

olof1 Says:

November 8, 2015 at 1:07 pm
The morning was grey and gloomy here but the sun showed itself after noon and it became a rather nice day. It is a chilly evening though so unless new clouds arrive I guess weäll have frost tomorrow morning, I don’t mind much this time since I have new winter tires on my car 🙂

I think nursery rhimes had died out here nefore I was born, can’t remember a single one. I know of Humpty Dumpty but learned about that one in school in English class. I guess however that like all old things they will turn up again as soon as any more or less famous person says something about it on tv 🙂

Have a great day!
Christer.
- katry Says:
  
  November 8, 2015 at 3:54 pm
  Christer,
  It was a nice day today. I went to the dump, and sometimes that is so windy it feels like Siberia. It was actually pleasant today.
  
  I think it is too bad that nursery rhymes are gone. They were such fun to hear. Many told wonderful stories in rhyme. This generation is missing something when their lives don’t include fairy tales.
  
  Have a great evening!
Richard Says:

November 8, 2015 at 1:30 pm
Oy! We have achieved Coolness here in Memphistown. Sky is bright ‘n blue, tho’, so there’s that – otherwise, a nice day. The trees have almost completed their leaf-shedding duties, and the bareness of the limbs against the sky is like looking at skeletal hands reaching upward in supplication. The apartment’s cold, but I don’t pay for heat – I pay for A/C. I never turn on heat in winter. I will, on the other hand, let faucets drip when temps drop below 28° for more than 4 hours.

You’re right about Sunday being the quietest day of the week. I usually listen online to a program I tuned in every Sunday when I was in New Orleans … Cheezmuzik on WTUL-FM from Tulane University. It’s on from 0600 – 1000, and it’s a nice way to kinda ease into the day. Next up is Hazel, The Delta Rambler on WWOZ-FM from 1000 – 1200. Quite a change from four hours of ‘New Age’-ish to Ralph Stanley and Charlie Louvin, but it’s what makes Sunday special – at least to me.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall / All the king’s horses/ And all the king’s men / Had omelettes.” Thankyewberrymush.

Nursery rhymes never quite captured my full attention. I knew they were supposed to be imparting some sort of Galactic Truth and Whizdumb, but they always left me thinking ” … aaaaand?” … there was no ‘there’ there.

The language of the rhymes, tho’ – that was a whole ‘nuther story. Language has always fascinated me … little things like that ‘thorn’ and ‘eth’ differentiation that eventually led to the ‘Y’ in ‘Ye’ which later became the word we know and love as ‘The’ …

Then there’s the word I found on some VietNamese currency … I turned a coin over and found I was holding a piece worth twenty dong. Does. Not. Compute. Does. Not. Compute. I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that. Would you like me to sing it for you? It’s called … ‘Daisy’ …

‘Ha’penny’ was a term that I didn’t quite catch onto either, but it sounded cool. I always figured it was easier to put the penny on the streetcar track and wait for the streetcar to flatten it into an extended oval than to cut it in half. Either way, I’m ‘defacing government property,’ right … ?
- katry Says:
  
  November 8, 2015 at 4:30 pm
  Richard,
  I will turn on the heat as I won’t be cold in my own house. Once when the electricity was knocked out during a storm my house got down to 37˚ for two days. I couldn’t cook and I couldn’t go anywhere as my car was under 3 feet of snow and even if I did, many places were closed. I froze and ate every cracker in the house. I had the upstairs and downstairs faucets dripping.
  
  At night I put the heat down low as I’m usually nice and warm in bed.
  
  Today I went to the dump and Agway during the Patriot’s half-time. That was it for the day’s activities. I did see one neighbor raking leaves and stopped to chat.
  
  Poor Humpty Dumpty, first is the indignity of the fall then being made in an omelet.
  
  Regional difference in language are amazing. My father grew up in Boston and he used to say he was taking his shirts to the cleanser. I always said cleaner. I then read an article which said cleanser is used only in Boston.
  
  Here a frappe has milk and ice cream. An ice cream soda just has soda and flavoring. A frappe is called a cabinet in Rhode Island. Are you confused yet?
  
  I knew the currency was called dong. I, however, went to Ding Dong School in my head.
  
  We put our pennies on the train tracks. I don’t remember if they were really flattened or not.
Morpfy Says:

November 8, 2015 at 2:39 pm
Oh Gee. only 46 more shopping days till Christmas
- katry Says:
  
  November 8, 2015 at 3:51 pm
  Morpfy,
  I did some shopping yesterday on-line and managed to finish my grand niece and grand nephews; however, I have so much more to do.
Caryn Says:

November 8, 2015 at 3:51 pm
Hi Kat,
I still do Star light, star bright, too. But now I have to stop and think about exact phrasing of wishes because you how wishes are a two edged sword. 🙂
Tolkien’s expansion of Hey, Diddle Diddle was far more interesting than the attenuated version I learned as a child. It’s very long and incorporates other bits of rhymes that made no sense either but all the threads are drawn together to a satisfying conclusion.
Some nursery rhymes have gotten mixed together in my head. I come up with stuff like “Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his curds and whey”. No?
How about “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Baker man, bake me a cake as fast as you can”. I think that one’s not right either. Oh well.

Today was cool and sunny. Spent some of it outside in the warm part of the yard where no wind was blowing. We’re all back inside and curled up on the couch where it’s comfy and warm.

Enjoy the evening.
- katry Says:
  
  November 8, 2015 at 5:05 pm
  Hi Caryn,
  I always think about the magic lamp and how people have asked for wishes in the wrong ways like the commercial where the guy wants a million bucks and he gets deer.
  
  I haven’t read the Tolkien you mentioned. You have me curious.
  http://www.rhymes.org.uk
  
  The above site is a good one for explaining nursery rhymes.
  
  The dump run was a good one. Usually the dump feels like Siberia but today there was no wind, and it was fairly warm and there weren’t that many people.
  
  WE’re all here in the den though Gracie is wanting something and keeps whacking me with her paw.
  
  Have a great evening!
  - Caryn Says:
    
    November 9, 2015 at 10:43 pm
    The Tolkien poem is called The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late and can be found in The Hobbit. Or you can go to this link and read it online.
    http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Moon_Stayed_Up_Too_Late
  - katry Says:
    
    November 9, 2015 at 11:10 pm
    Caryn,
    I must have read it as I did read The Hobbit but that was in 1969 so I know I’ve forgotten. Thanks for finding this. It is wonderful. I loved the rhyme and the story.
Bob Says:

November 8, 2015 at 4:39 pm
Today is a gorgeous Autumn day here in North Texas with clear blue skies and the temperature in the mid 60s with calm winds. It’s delightful outside.

I always liked the nursery rhymes as a kid and read them to both my kids when they were small. Some of the meanings have been lost because they were written for our British cousins who no longer use some of these words. Even today we are two peoples separated by a common language. 🙂 Here’s an interesting URL explaining the meanings of the rhythms.

http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/actual-true-meanings-classic-nursery-rhymes

I would never have thought that the pail of water that Jack and Jill went to fetch was a euphemism for sex. Or, that Humpty Dumpty was a cannon and not an egg.
- katry Says:
  
  November 8, 2015 at 4:49 pm
  Bob,
  Ours is a similar day except it was 56˚ when I did my errands. It was sweatshirt weather.
  
  I loved the nursery rhymes and my mother read them to me all the time. I know England is the source of most of them. I would add that we are a country separated by a common language. Pronunciations differ from region to region. The meanings of words change. Here a frappe has milk and ice cream. An ice cream soda just has soda and flavoring. A frappe is called a cabinet in Rhode Island.
  
  Interesting web site-thanks for hunting it down. Neither would I have thought about sex and a cannon.
  
  http://www.rhymes.org.uk
  This is a site in England.