Creepy nursery rhymes

[prozacpark]

I haven’t posted in who knows how long (292 weeks, according to DW, WOW) but I really don’t know where else content about creepy nursery rhymes belongs. I post on Twitter some, and had gotten into Tumblr for a while, but let that slide into oblivion, too.

Life update, in case I decide to talk about these things here: I’ve been married to my partner (Jehanzeb) of six years for about three years now, and we have a baby (Shehrazad) who just turned one. I have gone straight from post baby isolation into pandemic quarantine, so life has been otherwise uneventful. I’m watching a lot of stuff, but not feeling fannish about anything in particular.

So, I just realized that the childhood rhyme:

“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater
Had a wife but could not keep her
So he kept her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well“

we learned in nursery school has creepy and misogynistic origins. Why did no one tell me this before? Jehanzeb had never heard it before, so his response to me singing it to baby was, “That sounds like a serial murder story about a man keeping dead bodies in a pumpkin.” But I had somehow never realized that it totally did?

So I looked it up and it’s about a man whose wife kept cheating on him, thus his being unable to “keep her” and how he got tired of it and killed her and hid her body (in pieces!) in a pumpkin.

And here I thought that it was about a poor couple who could not afford to buy a home and made do with what they had and lived happily with each other.

In other news, it’s October in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and I need a place to talk about horror. So this shall be it. I’m really looking forward to Bly Manor and Rebecca.

Comments

[aphrodite_mine]

The pumpkin house narrative is what is totally sold by the Mother Goose Industrial Complex, to be fair.

I can't believe your little one is ONE. That means mine are just around the corner..... AH.

[prozacpark]

It’s ridiculous how fast they grow the first year.

[aphrodite_mine]

I'm in desperate need of more Shehrazad updates but am perpetually awful at texting.

Is she considering walking yet? XD

[prozacpark]

I posted birthday pictures on Facebook! I know, I never use Facebook but pandemic is weird.

She’s been walking for a little over two months now. She loves dancing all over the place and screams if you put on a song she doesn’t like, lol.

[aphrodite_mine]

I've just almost completely extricated myself from that wasteland, but I'm venturing back for birthday pictures!

[aphrodite_mine]

Pulled up your pictures and cooed. Liz pulled the computer over and also cooed. "Now that," she said, "is an attractive family."

Gorgeous, the lot of you.

[aphrodite_mine]

Also, hello, I've missed you in this spot!

[prozacpark]

<3

[lilacsigil]

Nice to see you here!

All the illustrations I've ever seen for that nursery rhyme had a cute little pumpkin shell house, so I would not have thought of the alternative either!

[prozacpark]

Interesting how someone who didn’t learn that in school with pictures had an immediate reaction of “Serial killer.”

I’m glad to see that you’re still here!

[dolorosa_12]

A lot of nursery rhymes (and other children's rhymes, like the ones school children sing when playing those hand-clapping games) are really disturbing, although the origins of Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater were new to me.

It's good to see you back!

[prozacpark]

I knew about “Ring around the rosie,” but somehow thought that was an exception?

[havocthecat]

You're back! I keep wondering what happened to you and where you were and I'm very glad you're here!

Congratulations on your marriage and your baby!

I didn't know that origin to the nursery rhyme, but I'm fascinated by it, I'm going to have to go look it up now. How very creepy.

[prozacpark]

Thank you. I’m very glad you’re still here, too. :)

I couldn’t find too much else about it, but I’m sure someone has written a book about the creepy origins of nursery rhymes.

[umadoshi]

It's good to see you posting! *^^*

And...wow, yes, so creepy. O_O I had no idea.

[prozacpark]

Hi! I’m so glad you’re still here. :)

[reflectedeve]

Hey, you! <3

So many American/Western European nursery rhymes (much like fairy tales) have creepy, creepy origins or resonances. (I was in the car with my bff and little niece a few years ago, singing along to "Rain, Rain, Go Away," when it suddenly occurred to us that the old man who "bumped his head and he went to bed and he didn't get up in the morning" was uh, probably dead?) As someone with no kids of my own, this is kind of fascinating - but if I were a parent I would probably see it as a minefield.

I always assumed Peter Pumpkin Eater was a jealous jerk who wouldn't let his wife out of the pumpkin house, but somehow it never occurred to me that she was dead. It's probably terrible that I'm immediately pondering how someone might adapt that into a short horror comic or something (perhaps with role reversal).

Also hello! I can't believe how fast time goes - and it's nice to see you here! I'm so bad at using my "fandom" twitter for anything but venting.

[prozacpark]

Hiiii. I’m terrible at being online in an active way at all anymore, but I’m glad you’re still here because the demise of LJ fandom culture has really made it hard to engage in online friendships in the same way.

Does it make me a bad parent that I still find it fascinating? ;). Although definitely need to be careful about exposing her to problematic narratives. And it’s a shame because my baby loves pumpkins.

I thought about how that would make a creepy short story, but a short comic is even better. Especially if you draw it.

You might not need role reversal?

I keep seeing a second part to it,
“Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had another and didn't love her;
Peter learned to read and spell,
And then he loved her very well.”

That I don’t remember learning? But imagine if the second wife finds the body of the first one and kills him before he can kill her and I’m sure a dead Peter would be a very agreeable husband and “love her very well.”