MEANINGS OF POPULAR NURSERY RHYMES.

Traditional nursery rhymes may appear at first glance to be mere pleasant nonsense, but they often conceal a sharply satirical reference to events and personalities long forgotten.

No. 1. “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”

Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, marry have I, three bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

The “black sheep” who claims to have wool for everyone represents leftist radicals who would distribute the nation’s goods (represented under the similitude of bags of wool) on a basis of strict equality to the three estates, ignoring considerations of merit and desert. We may, however, reassure ourselves that the sheep comes to an ill end, as recounted in another popular nursery rhyme:

Black sheep, black sheep,
    Cute as a button,
Black sheep, black sheep,
    Soon you’ll be mutton.

Comments

  1. RepubAnon says:

    Or there’s the NRA version:

    Mary had a little lamb;
    Her father shot it dead.
    Now Mary carries her lamb to school;
    Between two hunks of bread.

    • Sean says:

      My father and I used to sheer sheep for yuppies with small flocks and not much sense. One Gentleman from near Verona (PA) was also a big game hunter. One day, unable to get his gorgeous 4-horn Jacob’s Sheep ram into the barn, he did the only logical thing; went into the house, grabbed his gun, shot the recalcitrant beast, and mounted it in his trophy room.

  2. As far as I’m concerned, this is the only real “Baa Baa Black Sheep”.

    (Ignore the French overdub, apparently the original has been taken down off YouTube for some dang reason, and this was the only one I can find).

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