Halloween

 ⁨@PeacocksTaleMusic⁩  

 This track stumbles terrified through the cellars and attics of England's haunted house. These famous nursery rhymes are said to record the gothic cruelties of opposing religious regimes during the Reformation.

The old man who wouldn't say his prayers was the Catholic or priest who wouldn't conform to the new State religion under Edward VI and (after Mary) Elizabeth. My lady's chamber could be a forbidden chapel dedicated to Mary in a house or a suggestion that the priest was having improper relations with the Catholic lady of the house. The left leg meant a Catholic out of step with the rest. Some readers also see Protestant taunts of Catholic Mary Tudor (and Catholic Mary Queen of Scots') childlessness.

The cockle shells were instruments of torture used by the Catholic regime against Protestants under Bloody Mary (quite contrary) the pretty maids all in a row the graves of Protestant martyrs who had suffered such genital torture. The silver bells were thumbscrews. The garden was a graveyard: England under Mary.

It's all anti-Mary in the sense that it is about as far away from the Christian love and forgiveness the Virgin Mother is supposed to personify as possible, on both sides.

A more innocent reading of the Mary rhyme is that the maids in a row are nuns praying, the silver bells are the bells of Catholic cathedrals (forbidden since Elizabeth) and the cockle shells are pilgrim badges (also forbidden.)

These rhymes come out of a divided country. The animus felt against Catholicism by Puritans fearing that Charles I was trying to reintroduce 'Bloody Mary's' faith (and Spanish and French power) into Protestant England by the back door has roots in these kind of experiences; and vice versa. 

Mary Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty maids all in a row.

Goose-a, goose-a, gander

Where shall I wander?

Up stairs, down stairs

In my lady’s chamber.

There you'll find an old man

Who wouldn't say his prayers.

I took him by the left leg

And threw him down the stairs.

Mary, Mary...

Goosey goose gander

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs

And in my lady's chamber.

A priesthole for the old Guy

Who crossed the new State God,

The left-footed southpaw

Gutted for His Love.

Mary, Mary...

Mary Tudor, Bishop Gardner

Killing and Torturing Prots,

Silver thumbscrews, Manhood carvers,

Maidening their anti-Mary plots.

Anti-Mary maidening their plots.

The Queen of Heaven's makeless idol

Of childless Mary Tudor and of Scots,

Maids in waiting, headless-churchbells,

Pilgrim badges, nuns and empty cots.

Goosey goose gander

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs

And in my lady's chamber.

There I met an old man

Who would not say his prayers.

I took him by the left leg

And threw him down the stairs.

Goosey goose gander

Eyeing up the totty

Necklines and waistlines

Fronty and botty.

Mary Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty maids all in a row.

from https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/the-english-civil-wars-and-other-nursery-crimes, released August 22, 2021 

Pic by Bhas Allan.

Alternative music video - youtu.be/TDCbetcIG2I

Betjeman Cabaret at the Fring All Saints Parish Lunch

In celebration of Harvest Festival, National Poetry Day and the joys of feasting, friendship and community, here is Peacock Gaz dressed as a mouse and reading Betjeman's "Diary of a Church Mouse" to kick off our after-mains cabaret. Your After Dinner Squeaker as it were. The cabaret then continues and concludes with Corrine Tereszczuk's rendition of Betjeman's Hymn, after which she was told she'd passed the audition for the Fring Singers. Filmed at Sedgeford Village Hall Oct 5 2025 by Peacock Maz. We leave you to imagine the running about and squeaking at every table by the mouse before the reading (which did happen) and the ladies standing on chairs during it (which actually didn't.) The three carved church mice in whose honour all this occurred may be viewed behind the pulpit in All Saints Church Fring. Diary of a Church Mouse Here among long-discarded cassocks, Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks, Here where the vicar never looks I nibble through old service books. Lean and alone I spend my days Behind this Church of England baize. I share my dark forgotten room With two oil-lamps and half a broom. The cleaner never bothers me, So here I eat my frugal tea. My bread is sawdust mixed with straw; My jam is polish for the floor. Christmas and Easter may be feasts For congregations and for priests, And so may Whitsun. All the same, They do not fill my meagre frame. For me the only feast at all Is Autumn's Harvest Festival, When I can satisfy my want With ears of corn around the font. I climb the eagle's brazen head To burrow through a loaf of bread. I scramble up the pulpit stair And gnaw the marrows hanging there. It is enjoyable to taste These items ere they go to waste, But how annoying when one finds That other mice with pagan minds Come into church my food to share Who have no proper business there. Two field mice who have no desire To be baptized, invade the choir. A large and most unfriendly rat Comes in to see what we are at. He says he thinks there is no God And yet he comes ... it's rather odd. This year he stole a sheaf of wheat (It screened our special preacher's seat), And prosperous mice from fields away Come in to hear our organ play, And under cover of its notes Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats. A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I Am too papistical, and High, Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong To munch through Harvest Evensong, While I, who starve the whole year through, Must share my food with rodents who Except at this time of the year Not once inside the church appear. Within the human world I know Such goings-on could not be so, For human beings only do What their religion tells them to. They read the Bible every day And always, night and morning, pray, And just like me, the good church mouse, Worship each week in God's own house, But all the same it's strange to me How very full the church can be With people I don't see at all Except at Harvest Festival. -- John Betjeman The Church's Restoration In eighteen-eighty-three Has left for contemplation Not what there used to be. How well the ancient woodwork Looks round the Rect'ry hall, Memorial of the good work Of him who plann'd it all. ... Of marble brown and veinéd He did the pulpit make; He order'd windows stainéd Light red and crimson lake. Sing on, with hymns uproarious, Ye humble and aloof, Look up! and oh how glorious He has restored the roof!