Dark, Disturbing and Somewhat Horrible, the History and Origins of Nursery Rhymes #2: 🇬🇧 London Bridge is Falling Down 🇬🇧

Dark, Disturbing and Somewhat Horrible, the History and Origins of Nursery Rhymes #2: London Bridge is Falling Down

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Welcome to week 2 of Dark, Disturbing and Somewhat Horrible, the History and Origins of Nursery Rhymes. As you may have gathered from my other posts, I’m originally from England which in some ways makes these rhymes even more horrible to me… horrible, but not surprising, as unfortunately historically we were known for our blood lust and penchant for torture.

… and if last week’s rhyme wasn’t disturbing enough for you, then maybe this weeks will be…

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London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Set a man to watch all night,
Watch all night, watch all night,
Set a man to watch all night,
My fair lady.

Suppose the man should fall asleep,
Fall asleep, fall asleep,
Suppose the man should fall asleep?
My fair lady.

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OK, so these words seem innocent enough. Nothing being cut off like last week, no one being burnt at the stake. Just a rhyme about the famous London Bridge falling-down. But we all know, if that were true, then I wouldn’t be featuring it here…

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Believed to have been written in the 17th century, with the melody not being added until the 19th century, “London Bridge” or “My Fair Lady” is both an English nursery rhyme and a singing game.

When playing the game, 2 children face each other, hold hands and form an arch like the arches of the bridge and the other children run underneath, faster and faster trying to get through before the song finishes.

When the song is finished, the last child is trapped by the children forming the arch. See in the image above how happy they are!

OK, nothing too sinister about that…

However, there is a theory that the “watchman” referenced in the rhyme is a human sacrifice and that the bridge would collapse unless these “watchmen” were entombed in the bridge’s foundation.

When the children play the singing game the last person “caught” in the bridge symbolizes the entombed, human sacrifice.

I’m happy to say that there is no archaeological evidence to support this claim in this instance, but it’s a little unnerving that had to prove there was none.

Wow! Anyone want to play?

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Tidbit: This horrific practice is called “immurement” and unfortunately was an all too real form of capital punishment or sacrifice dating as far back as Roman times and was still being used as recently as the 20th century in Mongolia. The accused was locked in a small coffin-like box or sealed in a wall or other structure and left to die from starvation.

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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this week’s look at a well-known nursery rhyme, well perhaps “enjoyed” isn’t the right word… I hope you found this interesting and I’m looking forward to sharing more next week 😊

Link to last week: Three Blind Mice

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Original content by @redwellies

Reference: The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes & archaeologydataservice.ac.uk

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