On 2 Jan 2007 at 4:20, Allen Esterson wrote, regarding the haunting song "The bells of Rhymney"
"Oh What will you give me?/ Say the sad bells of Rhymney" (I'm partial to the Judy Collins version myself) > > It's highly unlikely that the nursery rhyme is Welsh as all the > churches are in London: Yes, but just in case the matter needs clarifying, this modified version of the nursery rhyme takes as its theme the exploitation of Welsh coal miners by the mine owners, and the town names are all Welsh (Rhymney, Merthyr, Rhondda, Blaina, Newport, Cardiff), so the confusion is understandable. During a year I spent in Wales, I toured some of these places, and I recall an outrageously opulent castle in Cardiff in particular, which the guide told us was financed through mine profits while miners starved. > I do not know, > Said the great Bell at Bow. > Here comes a candle to light you to bed, > And here comes a chopper to chop off your head. > > What the last two lines are doing there is anybody's guess! Wikipedia comes to the rescue. It claims that the original rhyme is a children's game, apparently like the "musical chairs" we play in Canada, in which the "chopper" is used to catch a child "out:". There are also darker interpretations. Curiously the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention the Rhymney version. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranges_and_Lemons Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
