“There Was An Old Woman.”
There was an old woman
Called Nothing-at-all,
Who rejoiced in a dwelling
Exceedingly small:
A man stretched his mouth
To its utmost extent,
And down at one gulp
House and old woman went.
.
Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes.
McLoughlin Brothers: New York. Ca 1900.
Elephant's Picture Book 
Nothing went into something
True!
Wow! Men as devouring and rapacious. A splendid fairy tale theme! 🙂 Great art, too.
Do you think she was tasty?
Elephant
Naughty, naughty! LOL
Only in your mind Brenda! I was thinking it looks like he was going to eat her house along with her, and she is so small and old – she just didn’t look like a good snack. Naughty girl!
Elephant
LOL, I was only teasing.
Were your palms itching? Someone is talking about you…
Oh Brenda! You should never listen to my ideas! Kidding! Thank you so much you are THE Awards Queen! I am really touched.
Thank you so very much!
Elephant
This conversation reminds me of the question “If you were starving to death would you rather eat a baby or an old person?” One of my kids said baby because it would be juicier 🙂
Help! You already told me this about eating a baby or an old person! I must be bringing up eating the dead way too much – otherwise why would this come up – my bad! I again agree with your child, how could a baby not taste better than a skinny old person.
With all due respect to how people feel, this is an illustration about eating someone – tasty or not. She gets eaten by this big mouth weirdo.
Rarely will children misguide you about such essentials as eating other humans! They have the gift of being closer to the essentials. Let’s go with eating the BABY!
Help! Cannibalism! But these are the themes of children’s books! Poor kids!
Elephant
That’s funny! I thought I’d already told you, but then I was like, why would it have come up already? We must be spending way too much time together if I’m already repeating stories from my limited story bank—sorry about that though I’m surprised that since Dexter is such a hit on TV that there isn’t a comedy on yet about cannibalism or big weirdos eating little people.
Never too much time – I always enjoy your comments – tell me things over and over – despite my reputation, I do forget sometimes! I think it was bigger to me because I thought about which one to eat – a deliberation of some importance!
Elephant
It stays in my mind because it’s from a book some guy wrote with all questions like that and I really wanted it, but I could never remember the name of it and there was no way of describing to booksellers that I wanted the one with the baby/old person question. 🙂 Only one person I know said that they would do neither and just starve to death (that answer hadn’t even occurred to me (but I may have said that already haha!
Next time you are in a book store – ask for the book and use your hands! Just act the whole thing out and they will undoubtedly understand which book you are looking for!
I don’t want to eat anyone and I don’t want to starve to death – so hopefully that can be the set point for the rest of my life!!
Elephant
PS I always find asking for embarrassing things kind of fun – strain yourself . . . strain others – it is an alert memorable moment!
I live for those moments in my writing–when things are incredibly awkward 🙂 I think I’ll go to a bookstore today and pantomime the entire transaction.
I think starving to death is much better than my ultimate fear–being suffocated to death. Whenever I go to kid parks where they have tunnels I have to fight myself from imagining getting caught in one with a bunch of people—horrific.
You really need that book of macabre questions. I would not like to drown – especially if I had to float around in the ocean clinging to wreckage in the broiling sun with no water before it happened.
Don’t forget those pesky sharks.
Yes, . . . drown after the harrowing drift at sea and thirst while sharks bite my leg off at the same time!
Forget the main illustration! All the above comments are a worthy illustration of the greatness/boldness/gory-ness of the story tales of old!
I just re-read the comments. My, my how we did go on. I’m glad it isn’t worse and I am very glad you enjoyed it. Do you follow Middlemay Farm? She is a talented amusing writer – at lease we amuse each other! Brenda you no doubt already know. And the very Zen kalabalu started us off in the right (wrong) direction!
Thanks for taking the time to amuse yourself with a close reading of our fairy tale talk!
Elephant
Note to self: remember some people read the comments!
No, I haven’t got to Middlemay Farm YET. To follow on from those comments I was most amused to read, last night, in my bedtime book “A Fugue in Time’ by Rumer Godden these words “The children’s songs are sad too: dead children; dead kittens; dead birds;” She is writing of the songs sung in a certain house over many years. But ain’t it so! Children in earlier years did have to deal (a lot!) with death in their real lives, so I guess the stories helped with that process.