Just look at those cute little sheep! What a great idea for an adorable children’s nursery rhyme, right?
Nope!
We all probably remember the story of Little Bo-Peep, right? Bo-Peep was a sheep shepherd, which is a gig for someone to wrangle sheep, feed them, watch over them, basically keep them alive and well, cuz… we want that wool, duh!
The premise is that Little Bo-Peep somehow lost her sheep, so she goes searching for their safe return. Does anyone remember how this story ends?
Spoiler Alert: The sheep are dead.
Here’s the full nursery rhyme:
Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can’t tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they’ll come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.
Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were still all fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they’d left their tails behind them.
It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails, side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye,
And over the hillocks went rambling,
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,
To tack again each to its lambkin.
Well, that got pretty grizzly fast.
In short: Bo-Peep carelessly lost her sheep. Instead of searching for them, she thought it would be a good idea to take a nap and just hope the sheep would return unharmed. Wow, solid game plan, Bo. How could Bo-Peep let this happen? All the sheep are dead! Even the lambs!
Also, was Bo-Peep a child? And if so, who thought it would be a good idea for a kid to watch over the sheep? Sounds like child labor to me. Either way, another children’s nursery rhyme, another dark story behind it.
Must have been big horror fans back in the day.
