Nursery Rhymes

The counting song ‘This Old Man’ is nonsense with a murky past — including a phrase whose meaning has been argued over for years.

People love to invent grim readings for cheerful rhymes. ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ resists them — it’s a round about optimism.

A popular theory reads this odd little rhyme as a relic of anti-Catholic persecution and priest holes. There’s no real evidence for it.

The rhyme really is a tour of London’s church bells — but the sinister ‘chopper to chop off your head’ ending is murkier than claimed.

For once the mystery is real: ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ has several genuinely competing explanations, and no one is certain which is right.

A popular reading turns ‘Three Blind Mice’ into three Protestant bishops burned by Queen Mary I. The evidence doesn’t support it.

A popular claim reads ‘Jack and Jill’ as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette losing their heads. The chronology makes it impossible.

A popular reading turns this garden rhyme into a coded account of Queen Mary I’s executions. The evidence for it is nonexistent.

A baby in a treetop, falling with the bough — the lullaby sounds sinister. But its confident ‘true meanings’ are all guesswork.

Recurring claims that ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ is about slavery — or was banned for racism — are folklore. Here’s the documented story.