Where do nursery rhymes come from? London's Burning

By Linda Jones

LONDON'S Burning is a hugely popular song, often sung in rounds.  Unless you have lived under a rock for most of your life, you're bound to know the words:

London's burning, London's burning
Fetch the engine, fetch the engine
Fire, fire! Fire, fire!
Pour on water, pour on water

I can well remember belting it out in school music lessons. But these days, it's still loved and can prove great fun for children to sing. I have a friend, who when asked if her daughters sing it, tells me: "Yes they do -- all the time, in the bath and when they wake up!"

As soon as we learned London's Burning, we were also told that the words refer to the Great Fire of London in 1666.Children of today are also taught this connection as part of their primary school history studies.

But for some scholars, mystery surrounds when it was written. Whoever heard of a fire engine in the days of the Great fire of London? (Aha! Thanks to the magic of Twitter and @Fernleyfishes in particular I now know even the Romans had such a thing - so yes plenty of people will have heard of them being around!)

And children certainly don't have to wait until primary school to enjoy belting it out!  

Comments

[Lisa]

It's interesting, isn't it?
We always find 'Ring-a-Ring-a Roses' a bit grim! The Bubonic Plague or 'The Black Death' was thought to have killed 25 million people in just under 5 years, between 1347 and 1352.

'Ring-a-Ring-of-Roses' supposedly refers to the first sign of the onset of the disease. Before lesions would develop on the skin, small rings of red bruise-like marks would appear.

'A pocket full of posies' supposedly refers to a pouch of sweet smelling flowers that doctors used to carry with them thinking it would ward off the infection. 'A pocket full of posies' would also go some way to mask the smell of rotting corpses.

'Atichoo!, Atichoo!' was thought to be the physical proof that you had the Plague. 'We all fall down' - speaks for itself!
Lisa

[Karen]

Thank you Linda and Lisa. It's fascinating that these lovely sweet nursery rhymes are based on such gruesome historical events.I wonder if lullabies are enough to give us nightmares!

Karen

[Lisa]

Lol!
Lisa :-)