Mary Mary Quite Contrary
MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARYWell, this story is quite contrary indeed. When you sing this I'm sure you think of a little girl with a pretty pink ( or blue) dress watering a colorful garden right?
We'll you are very wrong.
This story is about someone you all thought didn't exist.
Someone you would " speak to" during a sleep over.
Someone you all believed never existed because it's a urban legend. Well your in for a shock.
The nursery rhyme is dedicated to the one and only... Bloody Mary.
Lyrics
Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells,
With maids all in a row.
Decoding time
" Mary Mary quite contrary"
The Mary alluded to in this traditional English nursery rhyme is reputed to be Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary, who was the daughter of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic.
"How does your garden grow?
The garden, refers to a grave yard.
" with silver bells, and cockle shells"
The silver bells and cockle shells referred to in the Nursery Rhyme were colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The 'silver bells' were thumbscrews which crushed the thumb between two hard surfaces by the tightening of a screw. The 'cockleshells' were believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals!
"And maids all in a row"
The 'maids' were a device to behead people called the Maiden. Beheading a victim was fraught with problems. It could take up to 11 blows to actually sever the head, the victim often resisted and had to be chased around the scaffold.
Well, with that in mind, I'm going to go water my garden.
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"Ashes, ashes" meaning they'd burn the bodies of people who died of the plague.
Lastly "We all fall down" meaning that alot of people got it.