The origins of nursery rhymes are usually interesting in a pub quiz way.
Dirk Bogarde impresses a Brigadier to whom he is ADC in the war by telling him about Ring a Ring o’Roses – it’s abut the Great Plague in 1665.
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
This rhyme dates back to 1774 in print but its oral origin goes further back. It is a reaction to a tax imposed on wool by Edward I in 1275. It was a sales tax whereby one third of the price of a bag of wool went to the king, a third to the Church and a third to the farmer. The dame, presumably, is an abbess and has the advantage of rhyming with “lane”.
But I digress. I have six bags full of books I’m reluctantly de-accessioning, destination Oxfam. Some are duplicates, others trashy paperbacks I enjoyed but am unlikely to read again and lots of green Michelin guides bought in pre-internet times. It’s a wrench bagging up others like Donna Leon, Rex Stout, War and Peace (print too small) et al.
Time flies; six and a half years ago I wrote a post Books about Books that garnered some good comments. Now, at last, I have ordered three of the books recommended therein: A Pound of Paper : Confessions of a Book Addict, John Baxter; Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir, Rick Gekoski; Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co, Jeremy Mercer; all books about books.