Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf

Jack Sprat can eat no fat; his wife can eat no lean. The line from the fairy tale ran through my mind this morning as I was contemplating, or should I say berating myself, for eating that which I know is going to make me sick, resulting on a day or two in bed. I think it had something to do with the word fat, as I know fatty foods cause me problems, and that is why those words ran through my befuddled brain.

Then my mind turned to nursery rhymes. I was watching a game show recently and the contestant on the game show had no idea as to the answer to the question from the nursery rhyme “Rub-a-dub-dub.” I was practically yelling at the television, “How can you not know the answer is candle maker?”

But then, I also play trivia on Tuesday evenings, and we have a few young people on our team. We did have a question about a nursery rhyme, and the young ones had never heard of the nursery rhyme. I read nursery rhymes to my grandchildren when they were young and to my children, but did they retain that knowledge?

I suspect in our world of correctness today, “Grimms’ fairy Tales” might not pass the test. After all “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” was just that — grim. My parents read me “Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” I actually loved the book and still have it, but I am sure it is banned somewhere, because the tales our parents grew up on and passed down to some of us might be considered too grisly for our children today.

In case many of you do not know what I am referring to I will explain. “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” was first published in Germany in 1812 by Jacob and Wilheim Grimm. Their story is quite interesting, and if you get time you should delve more into their life. However the first edition of the Fairy Tales, though they were called Children’s Tales, weren’t well received as suitable for children because of the subject matter. Eventually through editing, sexual references were taken out, and as in Snow White, the mother was turned into the wicked stepmother. The interesting fact I found was through the rewrites and toning down the things listed above, the violence increased in the rewrites and thus they considered it appropriate for children. No sex for those children but lots of violence. Figure that thinking out. Many of these stories were taken from word of mouth and German folklore.

“Grimms’ Fairy Tales” included “Hansel and Gretel,” who were kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest. The children escape by outwitting her. Included in the book were “Cinderella,” “Thumbling” (later in English translation “Tom Thumb”) and let’s not forget “Rumpelstiltskin.” It’s another happy tale of a king shutting the girl in the tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, ordering her to spin the straw into gold, or he will cut off her head in the morning — lovely.

From the English we got silly nursery rhymes such as A-Tiskit-A-Tasket, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Bingo, Billy Boy, Bye Baby Bunting and more. Many of our younger generation haven’t heard of them. In “Hickory Dickory Dock,” all the mouse and the bird do is run up and down the clock. They seem very innocent so they should be fine to teach our children today. In fact, nursery rhymes are said in the early days to increase memory and learning in children.

But of course, just as we have today, there were those people who viewed nursery rhymes to have a hidden meaning. Thank goodness the internet wasn’t around in the 1800s to spread these theories. Look what we all might have missed. For instance, Katherine Elwes wrote a book titled “The Real Personages of Mother Goose” in 1930. Her theory was that nursery rhymes were a coded historical narrative or covert protest on something and not written for entertainment. “Baa Baa Black Sheep’s” origin, according to Elwes, was the slave trade and medieval wool tax. There was no supporting evidence to back up her claim.

Imagine what social media would do with that today? Whether there was evidence or not it would be true depending on what tweet or post you decided to believe. Then it would become viral and be perceived as the truth in many people’s minds because of where they read it and who posted it. It wouldn’t matter if it was a trusted source because we now tend to trust those who we do not know, but tell us what we want to hear. We then close our ears and eyes to the true proof.

Our children today certainly would not be shocked by “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” After all, once they pull up the internet or their games they are going to be reading about more horrible things happening now in real life than what took place in “Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” In fact, in June of this year an Oregon man carried his mother’s severed head into a grocery store — “Rumpelstiltskin” maybe? It was a viral story on social media. As kids today grow up things are not shocking them anymore.

It’s easy to kill people in their online games. It’s fun to kill people in their play. Not only that, but these games depict a lot of blood and gore and add visual graphics to the words.  Where does the line blur between fantasy and reality when it is the accepted mode of play? My Vietnam War veteran husband has told his grandkids that the killing field is not a fun place to be, but do they understand that? For some reason I think when we read our nursery rhymes, “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” and played cops and robbers we believed it did not mimic real life, at least not our reality because we weren’t aware of things like that happening in our world. We weren’t connected to it 24 hours a day.

Where is the line where we ban books we think are detrimental to our youth but pale in comparison to what we are letting our youth see today, allowing all other forms of media to be free expression and acceptable in our society?

I am going to laze and read my “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” It seems like much lighter reading than the news today.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at hermionyvidaliabooks@gmail.com.