German nursery rhymes?
C-Beeby
To the best of my understanding English nursery rhymes are rhymes for
children, which relate to actual events or famous people in English history.
e.g. "Ring a ring a roses" relates to the outbreaks of the Black Death
(bubonic plague) in, well, you know, history.
Can anyone point me in the direction of any German nursery rhymes? Do such
things even exist? Are they also inspired by actual historical events, or
are they, like Edward Lear's work, merely nonsense rhymes for children?
Thanks in advance,
Helen.
I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size." - J.R.R. Tolkien
Michael Baumgartner
>
> To the best of my understanding English nursery rhymes are rhymes
> for children, which relate to actual events or famous people in
> English history. e.g. "Ring a ring a roses" relates to the
> outbreaks of the Black Death (bubonic plague) in, well, you know,
> history.
Actually, it doesn't. Check
http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm
for reference.
> Can anyone point me in the direction of any German nursery rhymes?
> Do such things even exist? Are they also inspired by actual
historical
> events, or are they, like Edward Lear's work, merely nonsense rhymes
> for children?
The German equivalent would be "Kinderreime" or "Kinderverse".
http://www.spruecheportal.de/kinderreime.php or
http://www.iseline.de/gedichte/kinderreim/kinder_reim.htm
give you a couple of examples. Personally, I'm familiar only with some
of them, others I know in different versions. I guess many of them are
only regionally known.
As for the historical references, I'm not aware of any, but they seem
to be the exception rather than the rule for English nursery rhymes as
well.
Gruß, Michael
Thilo Simper
"Michael Baumgartner" <michael...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:cgn7dp$uch$00$1...@news.t-online.com...
> "C-Beeby" <twee...@northamptonshire.co.uk> schrieb:
> >
> > To the best of my understanding English nursery rhymes are rhymes
> > for children, which relate to actual events or famous people in
> > English history. e.g. "Ring a ring a roses" relates to the
> > outbreaks of the Black Death (bubonic plague) in, well, you know,
> > history.
>
> Actually, it doesn't. Check
> http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm
> for reference.
>
[. . . ]
> As for the historical references, I'm not aware of any, but they seem
> to be the exception rather than the rule for English nursery rhymes as
> well.
>
You're probably right that most nursery rhymes don't carry some encoded
message about history. But there are nursery rhymes with a sometimes obvious
historical background in German, too. You might well point me to another
website to proof me wrong but I think "Maikäfer flieg!" ("Maybug fly away!")
which is still pretty well known all over Germany relates to the Thirty
Years' War (1618-48).
There are also rhymes about the Swedish army of that time coming from a
Catholic perspective (While the Protestant tradition has seen the Swedish
king Gustav II Adolf as a hero saving the (religious) freedom in Germany
against the Habsburgs who wanted to re-catholicise many parts of Germany by
force. The Catholic war propaganda in return emphasised the brutality of the
Swedish troops.):
Bet, Kindlein, bet!
(Pray, little child, pray!)
Morgen kommt der Schwed,
(Tomorrow the Swede will come,)
morgen kommt der Ochsenstern,
(tomorrow the 'ox star' will come
- 'Ochsenstern' refers to the name of the Swedish state chancellor
Oxenstierna
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/axel_oxenstierna.htm )
wird das Kindlein 's Beten lehrn.
(who will teach the little child to pray.)
The second one is cited from "Allerleirauh. Viele schöne Kinderreime
versammelt von Hans Magnus Enzensberger". It's printed there in toned down
dialect:
Die Schweden sind kumma,
(The Swedes have come)
ham alles mitgnumma,
(have carried everything away)
ham die Fenster neigschlagen,
(have smashed the windows)
hams Blei davontragen,
(have taken the lead from them)
ham Kugel draus gossen
(have casted it into bullets)
und alle derschossen.
(and shot everyone dead.)
Eia Victoria, jetzt hat der Krieg ein End.
(Hooray, victory! Now the war has an end.)
My aunt who was raised in a more catholic rural area around the
predominantly protestant city of Nördlingen (theatre of an important battle
in 1634) once said that these rhymes or just fragments like among children a
threatening "Bet, Kindlein, bet! / morgen kommt der Schwed" were still to be
heard in her childhood. I think she also told that as a little girl she
couldn't understand the bitter irony when people made as sad face saying the
line "und alle derschossen" just to cheer "Eia Victoria" in the following
one.
You find this and other rhymes also at
http://www.zzzebra.de/index.asp?themaid=334&titelid=1961
In the famous collection of traditional German songs and rhymes "Des Knaben
Wunderhorn" (first published 1806/08) there's a partly similar poem with the
title "Schweizerisch Kriegsgebet"
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/arnim/wundhorn/wh3134a.htm
Browsing back and forward from there you'll find a few other nursery rhymes.
Cheers
Thilo.