Moglich-Warscheinlich, mein' Schwartzhenn',
Legt ihr Ei in das Relativwenn.
Sie legt keine Eier ins Positivdann
Weil sie postulieren nun einmal nicht kann.
from The Space Child's Mother Goose by Frederick Wisnor (1900-1958).

I have another Twinkle version, tho' spelling may be off:

Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid miniffic;
fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
Loftily poised in the ether cretaceous,
closely resembling a gem carbonaceous.

What an amazing coincidence! I was counting myself as one the lucky ones just this morning because I actually have a copy (on VHS) of "Fractured Fairy Tales." I plan on sharing it with my sister's 2 year old grandson.
My favorite "more traditional" nursery rhyme would have to be "Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle." In fact, I'm always delighted when I find art that depicts it.

Very few children today even know who the Brothers Grimm were...it is sad to think they may only learn a few nursery rhymes among their peers in kindergarten, and that they don't usually have the experience of having a story read to them (with all the possible interaction and learning that can occur from that). What concerns me is that young children are pressured to 'grow up' faster and sooner by the mass media... They are learning their fairy tales and stories within a visual context (rather than a literary one), a medium which allows them to absorb more material faster than relying on the development of their auditory memory and reading ability. The deeper question is to look at whether the storylines of those electronic 'games', TV shows and movies our children are so easily addicted to are derivatives of our historical stories or whether they are creating/experiencing new stories (and if so, what they are). What is the culture they are living within? And what happens to them when all they do is play and replay the same story/game/sequence of events over and over again? Do they develop the abilities to be flexible and creative at the same time...? And what stories do they learn about growing older and about being old? Be interested to hear what you have to say on this.

Your topic this morning Ronni struck a major chord with me, no pun intended of course. As you know I doodle a bit with music but now that I have retired all my real passion for music is for the very, very old music. Songs that in a very real sense carry the same history and culture that can be said of many of the nursery rhymes. And since you did mention the word “song” in the title of your post….well….

I sincerely fear the more recent generations are losing touch with the music that I consider a part of not only America’s heritage, but each and every one of our family’s heritages. The songs our generation grew up with for the most part were the early songs of rock and roll and some of those songs are still being popularized in this day and time. But there are other songs which in a sense are, I believe, even more important in keeping alive. Songs such as….

In The Good Old Summertime
My Wild Irish Rose
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Oh, You Beautiful Doll
It’s a Grand Old Flag
Oh Dem Golden Slippers
Five Foot Two

And of course the list could go on and on as you may well know, just as the list of nursery rhymes can go on and on. These are the songs that our grandmothers and grandfathers…even our great grandparents birthed in their lives and were handed down to us but for the most part they are slowly disappearing. Many of these songs you and I sang in grammar school. We sang these songs together in unison and they brought us joy.

I often site the example of the song “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” which was recorded and released for the first time in 1908 and was on this nation’s pop charts as the Number One song for seven weeks running. No one ever thinks about the fact that this song use to be a popular song. Although….that is at least one song which may not be lost. And that is simply because it is still associated with one of America’s more popular sports. Not the same can be said for scores of others which are just as important.

I would have truly hated to have missed out on the magic of this music and these nursery rhymes but I fear many of these treasures will ultimately fall to the wayside. They will never be missed….because they were never heard.

Ah..those wonderful days of Jacks and Jills and Twinkling Stars.Of Grimms Fairy tales...and Hans Christian Andersen.Surely Ronnie, we all grew up in a similar world though we're a million miles apart!And sure, kids today have missed out much of the simplicity, the joy and non-complexity of growing up.There was so much more-Enid Blyton and her Advenure and School Stories....Noddy , and all those elves and goblins and pixies.I could read her books 24 x 7!

Ronni, I think that many households nowadays are what you might call "post-literate," in that the written word just isn't very important any more. Which is partly how the Mother Goose rhymes and Grimm's and Andersen's fairy tales get passed through the generation. And I think a lot of parents censor the old stuff out of their kids' lives because it has elements that they don't think are appropriate.

I have made sure my kids know "The Owl and the Pussycat" by heart, and they also know a number of Mother Goose rhymes (because of the "Wee Sing" series on audio cassette and CD). I have barbershop CDs with many of the older songs listed above on them, as well. I sing songs to them that I remember from my childhood, and we tell stories and so on. Maybe the next generation will have a revival similar to the folk revival of the 1960s, just to keep the best of the old stuff from getting lost forever!

The book I remember most from childhood being read to me was "The Little Lame Prince". It's quite long but I was enraptured, even at five. I also loved "The Princess and the Goblin".

When I learned to read I spent most of my time reading the fairy tales volume of the Collier's Junior Classics. My favorites were "The Goose Girl", "Bearskin" (Grimms), "Wassilissa the Beautiful" (Russian) and "The Old Man Who Caused Withered Trees to Flower (Japan). From the same book my son's favorites were "Molly Whuppie" and "Teeny-Tiny". The library had some great recordings--he could listen to Vincent Price read Kipling's "Just So" stories over and over, as well as Carol Channing's "Winnie-the Pooh".

By the time I was in my twenties I had accumulated a large collection of fairy tale books. I detested the way that Disney sanitized the folk tales collected by the Grimm's. So I would gather different translations of the same story and my son and I would read them together line by line comparing the differences.

I don't doubt that my grandchildren, if I have any, will know these stories by heart as well.

You all brought up a lot of happy
memories. I share,read stories, nursery rhymes, and sing songs, from childhood when I my children (now 26 & 25)were young. My mother in law and my sister did the same thing.
How lucky are my children. I expect
them to do the same thing to their
future children

I love the Harvard version of Twinkle, Twinkle and I remember it now that you have written about it. Nothing else comes to mind now - but I have a headache...LOL

When I was very young one of my favorite books was one my mother had kept from her own childhood: "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. The poem Pamela quotes about having to go to bed so early depending on the season is from that book. It was very true then, but another from that book has turned out to be true for me as an adult:

When I have grown to man's estate
I shall be very proud and great
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys

I thought it was funny then, but as I grow older, I find myself less willing to share my "toys" with others.

How bout
Three six nine, the goose drank wine,
the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line.
The line broke, the monkey got choked and they all went to heaven in a little motor boat.

Actually children are not really learning rhymes and children's songs like they once did. And I agree with the commenter Alan G - we are losing some of the wonderful songs that are a part of our heritage.
I just watched the movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and heard so many songs I remember my grandmother playing on the piano. "Harrigan" and "Mary" were two songs I haven't heard in a long time.
I hate we are losing some very important parts of our past that are not being cherished and passed on from generation to generation.

I have fond memories of my grandmother reciting rhyming stories to me. One was called "Two Little Bootblacks" which was a bit of a tongue twister.

The other, which was my favorite, "The Painter of Seville" which I mentioned in a comment some time ago. I had never been successful finding the poem, but much to my delight, Claude at "Blogging In Paris" found it and sent me a copy.

Grandma always recited from memory, in the style of the time, with grand embellishments she had likely learned in her "Elocution" classes.

I find it interesting that reminiscing about our childhood brought more replies than any article you have written, Ronni. When I was small Saturday's found me engrossed in a book of Grimm's Fairy Tales when my grandmother wanted me to go out to play. It's too bad that the political correct crowd decided that these fantasies were too violent for tender ears and discouraged reading them. One thing that is better now (and that hasn't been mentioned) are the Dr. Suess books. I read every single one of his books to my children so often that we can all recite them today. Shel Silverstein (mentioned in a previous blog) is wonderful as well. So all is not lost, just replaced by different rhymes. I'm sure that everyone knows that the original nursery rhymes were written as political satire; "Jack be nimble, Jack be qick, Jack jumped over the candlestick". I don't know who Jack was but I guarantee you that those who first heard it knew who he was and what it alluded to.

LOL - I have been trying to get a song out of my head all day. I was having a bowl of my girlfriend's absokutely deliscius homemade pork and beans for lunch when all of a sudden an old cub scout song

"There were beans, beans as big as submarines
In the store, in the store
here were beans, beans as big as submarines
In the quartermaster's store"

popped into my head and I've beensinging multiple verses of that (ants ants wearing army pants etc etc) ever since :D

I'm so glad you're discussing this. I'm looking for a children's song from sometime in the early 1900's and am hoping you will be able to help.
Some of the phrases went like:
what kind of vegetable is a policeman's beet,
does a ship have eyes if it goes to sea?
are there springs on the ocean bed?

cathy i hate to tell you this but ive heard that poem before my great grandma used to say it all of the time and yes i know my comments a little late but oh well

Thank you for the poem about the little girl who fell off the chair. I have been looking for it so I can vary it and send to my mom for mothers day. She always told me that poem as a child, and with such drama. It is a great memory.

um... I'm actually 13, and I know almost all of the stories you mentioned. I used to listen to my mom read Aesop's Fabels to me all the time when I was younger because I had a really hard time reading and writing. I started reading the Brother's Grimm a while ago and am still trying to finish the entire series (with slight difficulty) and all of those jokes used to be what my brother would tell me to make me crack up.

And from just looking around, I feel like I'm much more mature than most of my peers, even though my growing-up enviroment is and has been a lot different than theirs.

I get sort of scared when I say a rhyme in class or pose an out-of-the-box idea, becuase all my friends think I'm wierd.

It might not be that they dont know, they just dont want to stick out. There's a lot people dont know about the lives of kids and so it's really easy to mistake fear for ignorance sometimes.

Sorry for posting so late, by the way ><''

Correction, it was "Mrs. R," not "Cop Car" who was attempting the rhyme.

I've just read a lot of strange variants of that most famous of surreal child's rhymes. The "correct" version goes as follows. (But of course since, like language itself, children's rhymes and myths and fables all mutate by region and by mishearing over time, I can't actually call it correct, merely original.)

One fine day in the middle of the night,
two dead men got up to fight.
With a blind man to see fair play,
and a deaf man to shout "hooray!"
Back-to-back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.

There was a similar one I hear as a child but can't remember. If anyone knows it I'd love to collect it again. It describes a man in a theatre falling from the stalls (seats on the ground in the centre) to the gods (the highest rows of seats near the ceiling set back over the circles so you can't even drop things onto the stalls) and as a result breaking a front bone in his back.
Any clues? Any versions?