Now that I have young granddaughters, the songs and nursery rhymes of my own toddling days bubble up from the long forgotten frontiers of my brain. Humpty Dumpty is together again and back up on his wall. The sky is unstable if Chicken Little is to be believed. And the debate rages anew whether “pease porridge” is hot or cold (even if it is forever nine days old). The list goes on and on but none of these tiny tales holds a candle to the one bizarre question asked of Mary. So let’s ask her again, shall we?
I wouldn’t have remembered Mary were it not for the daily online puzzles of the New York Times. Two weeks ago they devoted an entire word search to the sentences of this odd nursery rhyme. Which got me to thinking, just who was Mary, why was she “contrary” (other than a convenient rhyme), and what the heck was going on in her garden?
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. As Google goes, be careful what you search for. Jack and Jill really did go up a hill. Old MacDonald had a farm. There’s at least one itsy bitsy spider on the water spout. But Mary and her garden? She doesn’t belong anywhere near your grandchildren.
The first interpretation of “Mary, Mary” I came across was completely sanitized from the original. It claims Mary is the Mary (as in, Jesus’ mother). Mary’s garden is the growing Catholic church. Silver bells are the same jinglers used in the church service to recognize miracles with “a joyful noise”. Cockle shells refer to faithful pilgrims, as in the badges worn by those completing the Way of St. James. And pretty maids are nuns, lined up for a life of devotion.
If we stopped right there, Mary would be heartily embraced by the rest of the kid-friendly characters in my granddaughters’ nursery rhymes. But more likely we’re singing about “Mary I”, Queen of England in the 1500’s. This Mary was no saint. In her brief five-year reign she cleansed her country of heretics… by burning hundreds of them at the stake. “Bloody Mary” – her apt nickname – somehow became a drink at the bar (which I will never order) and the subject of a child’s nursery rhyme.
Mary I was at odds with her father King Henry VIII’s agenda; hence she was “quite contrary”. Okay that’s fine, but I wish the rhyme stopped right there. Her garden was likely a reference to a graveyard. The silver bells and cockle shells describe torture devices of the time (and I won’t be using a Google search to learn more about those). The maids were innocent women lined up for execution.
This is the stuff of nursery rhymes? I’m trying to picture little girls back then, sitting around in a circle and coming up with short songs from what they see right in front of them. Like Rosie and her ring, if some interpretations are to be believed. As for Ms. Contrary, I think I’ll go with a garden similar to the one shown here. But since the origins of her rhyme continue to be debated, I’m steering my granddaughters clear of her. Instead, we’ll sing about the other Mary, the one with the little lamb.
Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
Life In A Word 