Thursday, October 11, 2018

I saw Esau by Iona and Peter Opie

I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book is an updating of their older book, this time profusely illustrated by Maurice Sendak. It contains schoolchildren's rhymes, "clearly not rhymes that a grandmother might sing to a grandchild on her knee."
Tommy Johnson is no good,
Chop him up for firewood;
When he's dead, boil his head,
Make it into gingerbread

or

Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace;
And Grace is a little girl
Who doesn't wash her face.

The second is the natural riposte to the original: "Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace; both put together make a very pretty face."

I'm a book owner, and like this one:

Who folds a leaf down,
The devil toast brown;
Who makes mark or blot,
The devil toast hot;
Who steals this book
The devil shall cook.

No, it isn't Shakespeare, and it is often rather vulgar, and some of the customs jar--"selling a wife" was a poor man's form of divorce. You probably used some variation or another of these British chants when you were little. This may help you get a better feel for the past. For the longest time I didn't understand the point of the "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief" poem, but once I learned the key it made English attitudes clearer. I remember joining in with other first graders to chant a ditty at a chubby classmate. I had no idea what exactly it meant, and from his reaction I'm not sure he did either, but it was supposed to be insulting.

1 comment:

  1. I learned "Taffy was a Welshman" in first grade music class, as an introduction to the major scale. I didn't know what a Welshman was.

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