In the recent fire web drama "The Hidden Corner", the nursery rhyme "Little White Boat" adds a touch of coolness to the summer.
The song that originally carried the memories of childhood was transformed into a "yin music on earth". Anyway, when Ah Xin heard this song, he couldn't go back.
Death Overture "Little White Boat"
In fact, if you think about it, there are many nursery rhymes that "ruin childhood", and some lyrics are really completely impossible to think about, such as:
Why is the hook hanging?
Why don't the two tigers have ears and tails?
Why do murderous nursery rhymes always sound in speculative fiction?
……
So, good nursery rhymes, why do some of them sound so scary?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "Two Tigers" ever became the national anthem? </h1>
"Little White Boat" was originally a Requiem song in South Korea, and I believe that many people have already been popularized.
In 1924, the brother-in-law of the Korean composer Yoon Ke-young died, and he created "Half Moon" (반달) on this theme, both to record the loneliness of losing relatives and to express the pain of losing the land at that time.
But what you may not expect is that "Two Tigers", an inexplicably and catchy children's song, is actually an imported product.
Its original name was Brother Jacques, circulating in the French church, as a ballad urging monks to pray morning prayers.
Later, it gradually evolved into a playful hypnotic hypnotic song, and many, many versions evolved in European countries, such as "Brother Mark" in Germany and "Brother John" in Britain, but the lyrics did not change much: Are you sleeping, XX Brothers? The morning bell rang, clanging
Put an English version for everyone to see:
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing.
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.
So why did this children's song suddenly change its style when it came to China?
This also starts with the Northern Expedition. The patriots of the time refilled the lyrics according to the tune of "Brother Jacques" and wrote "National Revolution Song".
On February 20, 1925, the lyrics of the "National Revolution Song" were published in the inaugural issue of "Chinese Soldiers"
In 1926, the National Revolutionary Army swore an oath to the Northern Expedition, and in order to boost morale and mobilize the people, two new paragraphs were added to the song.
So the style of painting became like this:
With the continuous development of the revolution, the people in the places where the revolutionary army passed were eager to sing, and this song quickly spread throughout the country, becoming the most popular song in China at that time, and also became the provisional national anthem of the National Government.
The lyrics of "Two Tigers", which we are now familiar with, went from Chongqing to the whole country after re-filling the words: the soldiers in the Chongqing barracks liked to sing "Two Tigers" because Chiang Ching-kuo appreciated the lyrics.
In the "Theory of Chiang Ching-kuo" published in 1948, it was written that at a welcome party in 1942, the final program was to sing the children's song of "two tigers" on and off the stage.
Why does Chiang Ching-kuo prefer a nursery rhyme so much?
According to himself, "The most precious thing in life is the purity, sincerity, liveliness and innocence of childhood." ”
Many memoirs record that whenever he encountered a major problem, he would sing this song to inspire people.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why are nursery rhymes used heavily in speculative works? </h1>
Poking and poking at metaphors is really a great pleasure for nursery rhyme lovers.
This cannot fail to mention the various "murder trailers" in the speculative story.
For example, the "Horror Nursery Rhymes" in the network roundup "Star Detective" hints at the origin and destination of several children:
Pictured: "Star Detective" variety show
In Conan's theatrical version of "The Crossroads of the Labyrinth", the leather ball song "Marutake", a children's song that helps children remember the names of Places in Kyoto, is also the final clue to solve the case:
Pictured: Theatrical version of Detective Conan
Of course, the story of "nursery rhyme x murder" is brought to the extreme by Agatha Christie.
Her most famous work, "No One Survives", places 8 unknown people on the same island. The occurrence of murders again and again confirmed a nursery rhyme in the villa, "Ten Little Black People":
Stills from "No One Survives"
In The Rye Macky case in The Miss Marple series, the killer does the opposite, trying to use nursery rhymes to mislead the detectives about the direction of the investigation. Agatha's stage play "Mousetrap" also appeared in the Blizzard Villa with a nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice".
And these three nursery rhymes are all from the same one - "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes".
Speaking of "Mother Goose", I think everyone will have a few familiar melodies ringing in their ears.
For example, "London Bridge Is Falling Down";
For example, "Who Killed a Mockingbird?" became famous for the novel "Kill a Mockingbird?" ”（Who killed CockRobin?）
Another example is "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" in Alice in Wonderland.
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes is a collection of British folk nursery rhymes. Most of these nursery rhymes originated in the 18th century, and some date back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
Although it is a nursery rhyme, many of the contents in it are actually far from the "nursery rhymes" that we generally think.
For example, this song:
Miss Mary is so stubborn, how does your garden look?
Silver bells, beautiful shells, beautiful maids sitting in rows.
The scene that looks beautiful is actually written about Mary I, Queen of England during the Tudor Dynasty, who is known as the "Bloody Mary" for her harsh religious persecution.
In this nursery rhyme, "garden" refers to the graveyard of persecuted Protestants, "silver bell" and "shell" are colloquial terms for torture tools, and "maiden" is a decapitation device of the time.
Another example is the game nursery rhyme "Circle":
Circle, rose circle, full pocket, colorful flowers.
Ahhhhhhhhhh Ahhhhhhhhhh We fell one piece.
Today's British children will sing hand in hand and sing in circles, and then fall together at the end of the song. However, the original theme of this nursery rhyme was actually the Black Death that once ravaged Europe.
The "rose ring" was a round rash on the skin after the Onset of the Black Death; the pocket flower referred to the custom of putting a bouquet of flowers in clothes to ward off the disease; the "ah-sneeze" was a flu-like symptom that appeared in the final stages of infected patients; and eventually, the patients "fell down".
There are many nursery rhymes like this that point directly to historical events and social problems, and in China, nursery rhymes such as "Little Cabbage", which cries that children have lost their mothers, and "Magpie Tail Long", which "married a daughter-in-law and forgot her mother", are also widely circulated.
These heartfelt nursery rhymes are all true portrayals of the society at that time.
"Little Cabbage" was first recorded in the "Song Chart of the Children" collected by Dutch missionaries in the Qing Dynasty
Behind these nursery rhymes are real, bloody memories of the times. No wonder they are loved by speculative fiction.
In the past when information was not developed, nursery rhymes were a valuable social record. With the long-term singing of people, the original meaning of these nursery rhymes has gradually been forgotten by people, which is actually in line with the development law of language.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > nursery rhymes that are not "children" at all, why do they exist? </h1>
Seeing this, many people will ask: these cruel nursery rhymes, obviously so "inappropriate for children", how can they still be sung for so long?
Neil Bozeman argues in The Passing of Childhood that "childhood" is a constructed concept in which children and adults share a cultural context before books exclusive to children are widely disseminated.
That is to say, there was no concept of "nursery rhymes" in the beginning, and what adults say, children will accept.
In the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, the author affirms:
"The vast majority of mother goose nursery rhymes are not prepared for children first, in fact, many are adult codes."
Many of the widely circulated nursery rhymes are derived from folk songs or folk tales. They were not originally spoken exclusively for children, but rather they sang adult ballads to children, because only adults understand their inner meaning.
For example, when we set a pact when we were children, we would chant "pull the hook and hang", and there is a corresponding "Pinky Swear" in English, but in fact, they are all derived from Japanese nursery rhymes:
Fingering
Cut your fingers (we made a vow of cutting off the little finger)
Ginman
(Whoever breaks his oath) is punched ten thousand times
If you lie, I'll drink a thousand needles~
Swallow a thousand needles
I cut my finger.
Fingers have been severed (vows made)
There are also many understandings of "hanging" in Chinese, some people think that it corresponds to the cruel consequences of being punched and swallowing needles in Japanese, and some people think that this is the meaning of "one hanging money", pulling the hook is like stringing up money, and it is fixed and unchanged.
Since many nursery rhymes are "adult code", why do many nursery rhymes reflect reality in the tone of children and with beautiful intentions?
One reason is that "fairy tales are unscrupulous", people usually do not take children's words seriously, so the metaphors in nursery rhymes can make people appreciate current affairs in a fair and bright way.
On the other hand, especially in China, children are always associated with psychic stories. Nursery rhymes that do not know where they come from are often attached with some political meaning of "apocalypse".
For example, the Chang'an nursery rhyme at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Thousand Li Cao, He Qingqing." Ten days, no birth", is considered to be a prophecy that Dong Zhuo's regime will be overthrown.
"Thousand Mile Grass and Ten Days Bu" together is the word "Dong Zhuo"
In addition to the political implications, these allegorical ballads, dealing with extremely cruel social problems from a childlike perspective, also imply the aesthetics of poetry.
They reflect the thinking of adult writers, reflecting the author's concern and reflection on reality, but speaking in the tone of a child has a different meaning.
As Milan Kundera wrote in His Unbearable Lightness:
"The only really serious problem is the one raised by the child, and only the most innocent problem is the really serious problem."
However, don't worry too much about whether these "horror nursery rhymes" will affect the psychological growth of children, and the horror meaning of nursery rhymes has long been slowly worn out in the process of circulation.
The nursery rhymes created today are more of an educational significance for children, so they should be more cautious and rigorous in the creative process, in line with the laws of children's growth.
After all, digging up the cruel stories behind beautiful nursery rhymes is something that we gossipy adults love to do
[1] "< National Revolution Song >: The Strongest Voice in the Period of the Great Revolution", Liao Liming, China Archives Daily
[2] "< two tigers> almost became the national anthem |? One Reading Selection", that city
[3] "That year, Chiang Ching-kuo taught us to sing < Two Tigers >," Mara, Chongqing Morning Post
[4] "Horror Nursery Rhymes, Far More Than a < Little White Boat >", Kai Ge, New Weekly
[5] "Metaphorical Narrative and Horror Art——— Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose from the Perspective of Cultural Anthropology", Zhao Yue, Folklore Studies
[6] "< Little White Boat > How to Become a Human Yin Happy", NetEase is high
How is printing and television changing the boundaries between adults and children? Neil Bozeman's "Media Criticism Trilogy" takes you to see the impact of technology on society and culture:
#pgc-card .pgc-card-href { text-decoration: none; outline: none; display: block; width: 100%; height: 100%; } #pgc-card .pgc-card-href:hover { text-decoration: none; } /*pc 样式*/ .pgc-card { box-sizing: border-box; height: 164px; border: 1px solid #e8e8e8; position: relative; padding: 20px 94px 12px 180px; overflow: hidden; } .pgc-card::after { content: " "; display: block; border-left: 1px solid #e8e8e8; height: 120px; position: absolute; right: 76px; top: 20px; } .pgc-cover { position: absolute; width: 162px; height: 162px; top: 0; left: 0; background-size: cover; } .pgc-content { overflow: hidden; position: relative; top: 50%; -webkit-transform: translateY(-50%); transform: translateY(-50%); } .pgc-content-title { font-size: 18px; color: #222; line-height: 1; font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; } .pgc-content-desc { font-size: 14px; color: #444; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; padding-top: 9px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.2em; display: -webkit-inline-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 2; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; } .pgc-content-price { font-size: 22px; color: #f85959; padding-top: 18px; line-height: 1em; } .pgc-card-buy { width: 75px; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 50px; color: #406599; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; } .pgc-buy-text { padding-top: 10px; } .pgc-icon-buy { height: 23px; width: 20px; display: inline-block; background: url(https://lf6-cdn-tos.bytescm.com/obj/cdn-static-resource/pgc/v2/pgc_tpl/static/image/commodity_buy_f2b4d1a.png); }
Neil Bozeman Trilogy: Entertainment to Death + The Passing of Childhood + Technology Monopoly ¥100.5 Purchase