And they all lived happily ever after?

Back in the day, when I was a kid, my parents read me fairy tales, and we played games like "Ring Around the Rosie" in school. But now that I look back on those things, I realize that we were taught some pretty twisted stuff when we were kids. We played games like, Dodge Ball, where the object of the game was to bean some poor kid with the ball. It didn't matter if you hit the kid in the head or in the chest or in the crotch...just as long as you hit him. Then, there was Red Rover, where the object of the game was to hold each other's hands to make up a sort of "wall" and try to keep the running kid from breaking through - or if you were the runner, your job was to break the arms .... I mean break through the wall of arms. Yeah...and that game is not violent! I am sure plenty of kids were sent to the hospital because of that one. And then there is Ring Around the Rosie, which goes like this....

Ring around the rosie,

Pocket full of posies.

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down.

Sounds harmless enough, right? Wrong! This little "happy" tune was written about the Black Plague (pocket full of posies was to help to cover up the stench of the dead bodies...and the ashes has to do with the burning of the bodies...cheerful song, huh).

Don't even get me started about the fairy tales we were read as kids! Just look at these cheery examples of children's literature:

Grimm's Fairy Tales:

Hansel and Gretel - brother and sister are cast out into the forest to fend for themselves and come upon a candy house occupied by a children-eating witch.

Rapunzel - a girl is trapped in a high tower with no means of escape. She meets a prince who climbs up to see her via her unusually long (and strong) hair. But once her evil mother finds out, she takes Rapunzel somewhere else and hides here. Meanwhile, the clueless prince climbs up Rapunzel's hair only to find her evil mother there, and then she knocks him down into the thorn patch where his eyes are poked out by the thorns.

Clever Hans - (check out this happy passage) "Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves, and sheep's eyes, and threw them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans."

Little Red Cap (aka Little Red Riding Hood) - in this happy tale, Little Red Cap goes to visit her gandmother, who, unbeknownst to her, was eaten by a wolf. Then the wolf lures her in and eats her too! Then some hunstmen come and find the wolf asleep and cut his belly open, and Little Red Cap and the grandmother come out. They then fill the wolf's stomach with rocks and sew him back up and the wolf falls in a pond and drowns because he was too heavy from all of the rocks.

oh....and what about other songs and stories like....

Jack and Jill - basically Jack and Jill go fetch some water which is on top of a hill, and then Jack falls down, breaks his head open, and Jill falls down after him.

And they think heavy metal music is bad!