As Halloween draws closer, it’s interesting to think about children’s songs and rhymes and traditions that have creepy stories behind them.
1. Bloody Mary
While it’s not a song, it’s still a well known chant that children do while playing a game. The point of the game is to go into the bathroom with the lights off and repeat “Bloody Mary” in front of a mirror three times until she supposedly appears. But who was Bloody Mary? She was Queen Mary I of England, and she had multiple false pregnancies throughout her life and she was also known for the prosecution of Protestants. The legend goes that she’s trying to steal the youth of young girls through the mirror, or that she is trying to steal their babies. Pretty creepy.
2. Ring Around the Rosie
The famous lyrics of this well known children’s song are “Ring-a-round the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down”. Children sing this song while holding hands and spinning in a circle. However, you might not know that this children’s rhyme is actually talking about the Black Plague. A rosy rash was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and “all fall down” was exactly what happened. Knowing the origin of this rhyme makes hearing little kids singing it sound very eerie.
3. Rock-a-Bye-Baby
If you actually look at the lyrics of this nursery rhyme, you’ll notice how genuinely disturbing they are. “Hush-a-bye baby, On the tree top, When the wind blows, The cradle will rock., When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall, And down will fall baby, Cradle and all.” Something that most people don’t know is that when this rhyme was first published in 1765, a warning was placed in front of it that said “This may serve as a Warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they may generally fall at last.” This definitely leaves a lasting impression.
4. Three Blind Mice
Three Blind Mice is also about Bloody Mary’s reign and the three “mice” are a group of Protestant bishops who conspired to overthrow the queen and were burned at the stake for it. Critics suggest that the blindness in the title refers to their religious beliefs. It’s creepy to think that this song is actually about people being executed.
5. London Bridge is Falling Down
No, not the iconic Fergie song. The actual nursery rhyme is pretty long, and some theorize that some of the lyrics allude to human sacrifice and putting the bodies in the foundation of the bridge to hold it up. This theory is plausible because human remains have been found in the structures of other buildings. Other stories about the nursery rhyme talk about ghosts or viking attacks.
Some runner-ups for creepy origin stories are Humpty Dumpty, Round the Mulberry Bush, and She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain. But when isn’t a bunch of children chanting together not creepy?