Fire and Pestilence

My 9 year old Son and I were having a conversation about the origins of nursery rhymes over dinner Sunday evening. I happen to mention that I was in a play, entitled 'Fire and Pestilence', when I was in middle school. It was about the Bubonic Plague which effected London in 1665 and the great fire of 1666.

Two of the songs in the play were in fact adapted from nursery rhymes. These were,

• Ring-a-ring of Roses - About the plague
• London's Burning - About the fire, obviously

I duly explain to him about the fact that nursery rhymes and folk songs were a way of communicating historical events before the advert of television, etc.

I've had this theory that 'Jack and Jill' might have a connection to a pair of windmills on the South Downs near Ditchling. Therefore I Google'd it to see what turned up. I was of course completely wrong, which is nothing unusual. However, it did lead me to an interesting website which describes this and many other nursery rhymes origins.

If you're interested it's Nursery Rhymes - Lyrics and Origins!

Enjoy.

Regards

Chris

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