Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater (see description)

*** Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater Nursery Rhyme *** The lyrics of the "Peter Peter pumpkin eater" rhyme (unlike most) originate not in Europe, but in America. This rhyme is has become known to British children only in recent years as for most British children it has only just become clear exactly what a pumpkin is! As it is not indigenous to the British shores the vast majority of the British population have never eaten pumpkin! The American tradition of dressing up for Halloween (and the subsequent use of the pumpkin for making lanterns) together with 'Trick or Treat' has only reached the British shores a few years ago. *** There is not much doubt that this rhyme has American origins. It is debatable however whether it refers to the murder of someone’s wife as some suggest. *** Pumpkins have always been a very popular vegetable in children’s fiction. Who can forget Cinderella’s carriage being transformed from a humble pumpkin? Pumpkins are also used to ward off evil spirits on Hallowe’en, by being hollowed out and used as lanterns. *** There have been several attempts, across the world, to revise nursery rhymes (along with fairy tales and popular songs). Even in the late eighteenth century we can sometimes see how rhymes like 'Little Robin Redbreast' were cleaned up for a young audience. In the late nineteenth century the major concern seems to have been violence and crime, which led leading children's publishers in America like Jacob Abbot and Samuel Goodrich to 'improve' mother goose rhymes. In the early and mid-twentieth century this was a form of bowdlerisation, concerned with some of the more violent elements of nursery rhymes and led to the formation of organisations like the British 'Society for Nursery Rhyme Reform'. Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim strongly criticized this revisionism, on the grounds that it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues and it has been argued that revised versions may not perform the functions of catharsis for children, or allow them to imaginatively deal with violence and danger. *** (Retrieved from: Wikipedia on 10/19/2009)

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