Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories
    Unavailable
    Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories
    Unavailable
    Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories
    Ebook196 pages2 hours

    Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories

    By Liz Evers

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Today's parents are increasingly replacing nursery rhymes with the latest pop songs, and fairy tales - now thought too scary for little ones - with cute stories about farmyard animals and talking trains.Until recently, weird tales of fairy curses and flesh-eating ogres were considered suitable bedtime reading. And the strange-sounding and sometimes violent rhymes we learned by rote were often taught to us in school. But have you ever asked yourself what on earth they were about? And what exactly were the morals and lessons we were meant to learn from them?Here Comes a Chopper to Chop Off Your Head delves into the origins of the best-known rhymes and tales to uncover a legacy of folk superstition, rotten royal families, execution, child marriage, cannibalism, and the multitude of other random acts of cruelty that make up any classic treasury.You'll learn about the bloody history of Mary,Mary, Quite Contrary; why Margery Daw, the subject of an innocent-seeming seesaw game, was accused of being a 'dirty slut'; and how pretending to decapitate your little friends to the tune of Oranges and Lemons became an acceptable pastime.You'll also find out about the terrifying events that befell the first Sleeping Beauty when she finally woke up; how Snow White's stepmother really died; and just who the wolf was in Little Red Riding Hood.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Blake
    Release dateOct 2, 2014
    ISBN9781784182267
    Unavailable
    Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories

    Read more from Liz Evers

    Related to Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      To Catch A Woozle

      Apr 1, 2020

      To Catch A Woozle
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tales From The Countryside

      Dec 14, 2023

      Tales From The Countryside
      7 min read

    • Article

      Unfinished Portrait

      Dec 1, 2018

      I SHALL NEVER finish what would have been my twentieth novel. When I started it, it was to be called Iridescence, but after I had been working on it for a while I changed the working title to Butterfly. The opening image was of bubbles floating over

      7 min read

    • Article

      Worlds Of Ink And Paper

      Nov 22, 2022

      As a young girl, I still remember my dear mother, smile on her face, curled up with Family Circle magazine in her lap. She was engrossed in an article titled “Butternut Wisdom,” written by Gladys Taber. At my age, it didn’t mean a thing to me. But as

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Teenager, Strangers And A Pair Of Apes

      Oct 26, 2023

      PERHAPS AS A FUNCTION OF MY OWN journey through middle age, I have become increasingly interested recently in late work. This is the writing that comes when a writer has passed what blurb-composers call “the peak of their powers”, but at the same tim

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Was It About Animorphs?

      Jan 23, 2019

      What Was It About Animorphs?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Saunders, Enríquez, Gurganus, and More

      Jan 12, 2021

      Here's a quick look at some notable books—new titles from George Saunders, Mariana Enríquez, Allan Gurganus, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Saunders, Enríquez, Gurganus, and More appeared first on T

      9 min read

    • Article

      Reading in English

      Jul 7, 2020

      Reading in English
      5 min read

    • Article

      Kathleen Kent And Laird Hunt On Witches And Wickedness In American History And Literature

      Oct 17, 2018

      The concept of the witch has figured prominently, not only in American history but in American literature as well. From Cotton Mather’s cautionary essays to Nathaniel Hawthorne to Arthur Miller, readers have been held in thrall by accounts of accused

      8 min read

    • Article

      The 25 best Australian books of 2022: Chloe Hooper, Alex Miller, Jessica Au and more

      Dec 19, 2022

      Simon & Schuster Chloe Hooper’s talent for piercing the beating heart of a story is turned inwards in this beautifully rendered and very personal book about how to talk about death with her young children, after discovering their father had an aggres

      9 min read

    • Article

      Swansongs And Southern Discomfort

      Oct 27, 2022

      THE BORDERLAND BETWEEN popular fiction and literary fiction is now fertile territory. Once upon a time it was easy to tell them apart. Popular and genre fiction were in small format paper-backs, literary fiction larger: now all have been promoted to

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Path Through the Woods

      May 30, 2023

      A Path Through the Woods
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books Only a Mother Could Love

      May 10, 2019

      Books Only a Mother Could Love
      5 min read

    • Article

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • Article

      Universal Truths

      Jun 20, 2021

      Universal Truths
      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 25, 2020

      In this novel, set amid the Spanish Civil War, Isabel Allende gives us a short but incisive account of the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of the Dalmau family from Barcelona, the Republican forces’ centre. It’s 1938, and the Republicans are

      5 min read

    • Article

      Librarians of the 21st Century: Worst Story Time Ever? (Or Best?)

      Mar 14, 2017

      Librarians, at cocktail parties and at work, are often asked whether anyone uses libraries anymore. This oblivious question has led many in the profession to insist, in marketing campaigns and in interviews, that libraries are “more than just books.”

      4 min read

    • Article

      Rewiring The Gendered Gaze

      May 1, 2019

      AP2 Books Chelsey Minnis, Baby I Don’t CarePaperback, 272 pagesWave Books, 2018 Khadijah Queen, I’m So Fine: A List of FamousMen & What I Had OnPaperback, 96 pagesYesYes Books, 2017 Carmen Gimenez Smith, Cruel FuturesPaperback, 88 pagesCity Lights Sp

      6 min read

    Reviews for Here Comes A Chopper to Chop Off Your Head - The Dark Side of Childhood Rhymes & Stories

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words