Do You Know the Muffin Man?

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

A silly little rhyming game or a dire warning?

“Do you know the Muffin Man?

The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man

Do you know the Muffin Man

Who lives in Drury Lane?”

Should I know the Muffin Man?

Will you tell me? What is his tale?

Do I want to know that man

Behind his friendly veil?

What lurks there… can you tell me…

Of what evil hides in plain sight…

Warning what darkness you see…

In soiled innocence plight?

Rife the news of missed women's

Bodies dragged for in tributary…

And all down along the Thames…

Where evil might carry.

Is’t worse than th’Angel Maker,

That loathsome ‘Ogress of Reading,’

Who wound tape o’ dressmaker

Round babes ‘stead o’bedding?

This Muffin Man of-whom you warn…

Is he worse than ‘Melia Dyer,

Who four hundred babes did not mourn,

But murdered for false hire?

Is’t worse than tales weighted hard

Of life there and down Feathers Court

Where life comes so cheaply marred

And death doth hope abort?

This warning dire you deliver

To ‘ware the wicked Muffin Man,

Does set my soul a-quiver

In fear of the villain. 

I don’t want to know that man

That Muffin Man, that Muffin Man

I don’t want to know that man

Who lives in Drury Lane!

Amelia Dyer killed 400 or more mostly illegitimate babies between 1880 and 1896. She was paid -- a practice called “baby farming” -- to take the children, usually with the understanding that she was adopting them or finding homes for them. Dyer killed the infants by wrapping dressmaker’s tape around their little necks " but not so tightly as to kill them quickly -- and slowly strangling them. She confessed to her crimes, -- and to her pleasure watching the life slip away from those choking innocents -- admitting, “You'll know all mine by the tape around their necks.” She was tried and hanged in 1896 for murder. 

Drury Lane was long infamous -- even in Shakespeare’s time -- as a place of abject poverty, of moral and social degradation. From the 16th through the 18th centuries, Covent Garden, especially in the area of Drury Lane, was the primary location of London’s sex trade. It was long known for it’s questionable ladies whose clientele included not just the poor and criminally or socially questionable inmates of the area, but also privileged gentlemen seeking entertainments found between Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Doubtless many of Amelia Dyer’s victims were progeny of that human flesh trade.

by D. Denise Dianaty

Reviews

[realmwriter]

So then this begs the question: Who is the Muffin Man? I only know of the limerick. But now I find myself engrossed with the Muffin Man in a way for which I had not previously considered or known. I will endeavor to brighten my knowledge, or lack there of, from this fleshly, bone chilling tale of death, wrought with blood and gore even if it isn't spilled from every line and written in every word. Well done indeed.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. From my research, I couldn't find that the rhyme was ever more than a Victoria-era rhyming game. But, also from my research, I'm not the only one who felt some threat in its lines: there's a proliferation of Muffin Man horror fiction out there. However, the history in my homage is quite true of life in the Drury Lane area and of Amelia Dyer. Who needs fiction when true life is so very horrific?

[realmwriter]

Right. Fiction be damned.

[MomzillaNC]

. . . . . . . ;P

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

Tat is a wicked take on a fun classic. well done.

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks so much!

[Rich13White]

Woe...at first I was thinking nice little twist I love it and then I did research behind what you had wrote and found the sinister scary and soul sickening, stomach truning truth...evil truly exist

[MomzillaNC]

IKR?! IKWYM! Who needs fairytales when reality is so stomach charmingly frightening!? Thanks you for your kind words and review. I’m honored my little poem inspired you to read more! “Writers write always” Great writers read, then write!

[Natali Bingham]

This is amazingly twisted and beautifully written, great job!

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks. Yeah. Who needs fiction when reality is so horrific…

[Sindu]

I do not want to cross the path of The muffin man!
A very daunting narration!!

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

[Sanjh]

The story of Amelia Dyer is sad and terrifying. You have used it wonderfully here. It keeps on flowing till the end.
Thank you for sharing...:)

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

[misha]

What an interesting piece! It is odd how morbid, bleak and terrible children's rhymes actually are. Great job!

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks. As I've said to other reviewers, though, I didn't find any real evidence of malignant intent in the rhyme. Drury Lane, though, was infamous. And Dyer, many of whose pathetic victims were likely born of Drury Lane's downtrodden, was real and her crimes more heinous than I could ever pen.

But, it's true, that many of the children's stories and nursery rhymes were never the whitewashed Disney tales most people know today.

[Confuser]

Thank you. I loved it. You are a great writer - it just flowed and a watched a docu about Dyer and recognized the name. True psychopath not so common in women. Thanks for the education about Drury Lane. Oh, this gave me chills.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you for your great review. Yeah, Dyer made my blood run cold. I found no evidence of tragedy or evil connected the rhyming game, per se. But, there's an astonishing amount of fiction about evil muffin men out there.

I must not be the only one who always felt an implied threat in the rhyme.

[Confuser]

It was unfortunately something that continues. I married at 17 and worked for a psychologist typing reports - I had no idea how insane and evil people are. As for the muffin man, I am glad you wrote it - and I think I've heard of some horror/scarey movie called the Muffin Man; could have been the Candy Man, I don't know, but the thing is, it's hard to trust because they're are so many nuts out there. Well, I'm going on. Just loved the read.

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks again. And, there is an evil fiction out there about a daemon muffin man, among more pedestrian evil muffin man fictions.

[Pushkar Prabhat]

Scary!!! dark twisted and beautiful.
i loved it!!
:)

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

[The Black Warrior]

Wow this is pretty amazing...very twisted...I love it!

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.