5 Nursery Rhymes and their Dark Origins

3. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

This popular English nursery rhyme that sounds harmless seems to be just talking about gardening, but there is a gruesome tale behind it.

Though some say that the silver bells did stood for Catholic Cathedral bells, the cockle shells stood for the pilgrimage to Spain and the pretty maids in a row stood for a row of nuns…

But another theory is that it has to do with Queen Mary I of England, who is better known as Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary was popular with her prosecution of Protestants due to her fierce belief in Catholicism. Now this is how the rhyme goes:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Though the last sentence are the ones that has a lot of variations; the oldest known published version of the rhyme going like this:

Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?

With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
And so my garden grows.

So the word contrary in the rhyme is just another way of saying different, weird or even psychopath. The Silver Bells and Cockle Shells are actually torture devices and the garden growing is how dead people are piling. Makes you rethink about the nursery rhyme a bit doesn’t it?