By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ is one of the best-known nursery rhymes in English literature, but its words are so baffling and odd that it almost qualifies as nonsense literature. Whilst not quite up there with ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ in the nonsense stakes, ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ is nevertheless an odd little children’s rhyme. What does it mean, and what are its origins?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
We tend to associate nonsense verse with those great nineteenth-century practitioners, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, forgetting that many of the best nursery rhymes are also classic examples of nonsense literature. ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’, with its bovine athletics and eloping cutlery and crockery, certainly qualifies as nonsense.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes is among the most famous of all of Aesop’s fables. What does this little tale mean? And what common everyday phrase did it inspire? Summary In summary, the fable of the fox and the grapes runs as follows: one hot summer’s … Read more
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Is the story of Bluebeard based on a real person? Perhaps more so than any other fairy tale, we want to know whether the chilling tale of the serial killer and wife-murderer (and perhaps the example par excellence of toxic masculinity in children’s literature) is based on historical fact.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What is the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ all about? And what is the moral of this story? It’s one of the best-known and best-loved fairy tales in Britain, and also – as we will see – one of the oldest.